At the core of this collection there is a preoccupation with the elements, of air, water and fire as both unreliable and constant. The scattered arrangement of the first poem ‘Parachute’ belies its opening line, ‘… So now we are
in charge’. There is a breathless quality to this poem which works extremely well. Formal decisions clearly have not been taken lightly and the unselfconscious shifting of form throughout feels bold, confident and unaffected.
One of Klaces’ attributes is his ability to inject glamour into the mundane, causing a re-envisioning of accepted realities, this is executed with a light and charismatic touch in, ‘The cursor and other freedoms’: ‘As long as nothing has yet been logged into / there is grace. A little fluorescent blob of it. / But my card, gentleman, is full. Once online I shall dance all night’.
Technology appears throughout, reminding us that in our world it is the primary link to the past. The past in Bottled Air, often feels like a staged thing, an exhibition, something to be looked up, captured on postcards, in bottles, and contained. ‘Cheering the Relief Boat’ is a powerful two-part poem, in which history is manipulated via a doctored photograph. Part I of the poem is chant-like, it’s rhythms and repetitions born of the sea: ‘The horizon blackens. / Marston is going. Shouts slip off white rocks. / The sea clamps bone. Icy feet line the shore. / The boat is not in the bay. / The horizon shouts. Hurley boils. The sea weeps Marston ashore.’
Part II, a prose poem, in which ‘truth’ is exposed through the photograph, ‘the alteration of which was not entirely successful’, is now a postcard in the hands of the narrator. At the end of the poem the narrator’s personal histories also fix themselves in memory, ‘…always mid-jump, neither alive nor dead’.
At the heart of the book there is a striking thirteen poem sequence, ‘Cats on Fire’, which is one of the highlights for me. There are many lines worth quoting but I’ll settle for one small section:
As far as I can see, there are two basic flame-types.
Nasty slight quick
ones grasping
everything they can
and slow
lush choosy ones
so cool they look
thirst-quenching.
Eyewear publications use an above average-sized format and for Bottled Air this works very well; a lot happens on these pages: sequences, long lines, prose poems, and general shapeliness, all of which benefit from having extra space in which the poems might breathe. The super-sized author photograph also makes something of a statement, particularly in contrast to the rather demure passport-sized shots typical of the majority of British poetry publications.
Bottled Air is a strong first collection which demonstrates considerable range. There is an aura of learnedness about it, but it is not stifling. Klaces incorporates the historical, political, scientific, technological with obscure customs and references in these poems, but everything the reader needs to know, (for now at least), is contained within the pages of the book, either cross-referenced between poems or contained in the Notes, which are a combination of information, personal anecdote and commentary. A couple of these notes answer or illuminate the original poem, in poem form, the collection’s title is taken from one such note:
Finally, the air is in the bottle:
the smaller
smaller imprints of the same allegro fear
of choking outsourced: (‘His wife replies practically’)
Reading these notes, (and buried poems), compels the reader in a pleasing way to revisit the poems. All of which adds to the texture of the collection and is very satisfying.
Janet Rogerson