From reviews of How I Learned to Sing so far, plus other related writing. Click on the links where provided to see the full reviews. I quote for reasons of length mainly, rather than to cut out the critical bits!
‘And what a
fabulous collection it is, an unpretentious examination of art and life in
general with his role at the Arts Council naturally informing his worldview (“I
could be sticking words to beats somewhere near Boyana / Instead of playing
jargon bingo eating a banana”). Clear-eyed and rooted in reality (he’s not
afraid to reference Sky Sports, The Lion King and Kafka) and with a finely honed
sense of social justice and sparky wit this is a collection that is rich with
biographical detail. And he gives just as much weight to the little moments in
life, which speak just as loudly as the big stuff.’
‘Some of them will make you think about
important issues, while others will make you smile. Many of them perform both
roles at the same time. Titles include ‘Laying A Carpet with my Dad’ and
‘Buttocks’, which sound hilarious, but also have more than a note of sadness.’
Mark Robinson sees angels all over the
north-east, far beyond the Antony Gormley landmark that greets the A1 traveller
heading towards Newcastle. And ghosts, too. …the most interesting section is
the opening one, The Dunno Elegies, which takes the reader on a tour of a
region dismissed recently by a Tory peer as “desolate”, and locates it with
poetic, political and psychogeographical signposts.
His poetry is a world away from streetwise,
metrocentric concerns and rhythms, or the allusive and elusive language often
found in Poetry Review; and none the worse for that.
He also includes a number of fine football
poems, which of course will not hit the back of the net with many readers, but
are applauded warmly by this reviewer.
In many ways his poems speak of the best of
England, its industrious past, its still untapped potential, and the dreams of
its people, with clear-eyed honesty, compassion, and wonder.
He is hugely
underrated and a real original.
His words are a reminder of how dependent
the quality of our future is on reflecting on and encompassing lessons from the
past. They immediately reminded me of William Blake's famous question about
whether or not England's spiritual heart could survive the Industrial
Revolution.
Robinson ends on another line from his
poem Angel of the North, Gateshead, asking a question that is synonymous
with Blake’s. “If we knew how terrible it would feel/ to be reminded that
beauty exists/ just a fleet moment from the walker's path,/ in mould on a leaf,
or mud on a footprint,/ what would we do, would breath catch or guilt grip?”
For Blake “those feet” almost undoubtedly
didn’t walk upon England’s pastures green. But that wasn’t going to stop him
from striving for a spiritual truth, even if the odds looked set against him.
For Robinson adapting to the world as it is happens is a process of looking for
the bigger picture within the detail, ie finding what inner strengths and
resources can be nurtured as a result of taking a step back to consider all
aspects of the identity you find yourself inhabiting.
Colin Hambrook, Creative Case for Diversity (again, not a review of the book as such but a blog about a film featuring some of the poems)
The final poet of the afternoon, Mark Robinson, read from his collection How I Learned to Sing. It is a collection about the “cultural and industrial transformation of the North of England” and this therefore makes Robinson the most obviously “regional” of all three poets. Never one to avoid a good pun, Robinson created his own version of the Bohemian Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies,but instead colloquially entitled them The Dunno Elegies. The poem that would naturally lend itself best to a Durham Book Festival reading is a musing on the historic city itself, and Robinson successfully fused Durham’s rich history with his own poetic style. He presented a vivid picture of the “earth-bound angels” that “throng the bridges” and the all-too-familiar notion of being given “a lecture in rhetoric.”
As well as these topographical works, what makes Robinson’s writing so unexpectedly brilliant is his ability to turn from what one would consider conventional aestheticism but to still create something ultimately beautiful. In How I Learned to Sing, the audience are presented with the striking image of “the snag of mishaps” that has “shaped mum’s face into a taut parody of itself.” Yet, as Robinson read aloud, you could understand how his writing is not intended for the academics; instead he is writing for, not, as his poem exclaims, the “real birds” with “real blood”, but the “real people” with “real heritage.”
Alex Opie, The Bubble, part of a review of a Read Regional event with Tara Bergin and Cara Brennan.
How I Learned to Sing is aptly titled, for one of the astonishing things Robinson continually does is make music out of political and social concerns and observation. His poems tell stories, but these are stories fuelled and informed by anger and outrage at the way he and all of us are treated.
In more recent poems this is filtered through stories about his family, his fears for his children, often via more playful and gently experimental forms - lists and variant patterns. Robinson is ‘a northern poet' still, he says so in his poems; and the plain-speaking, plain-language of his early work has (thankfully) never gone away.
Here are two poets who have learned to sing down-to-earth songs, who know that 'Ideas should not be mistaken for facts' (Robinson) but know ideas come out of facts, make facts and inform facts. Fact: this is hard-won, hard-working poetry, that's reminded me how good words on the page can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment