{"id":3112,"date":"2013-10-04T08:45:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T08:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3112"},"modified":"2016-01-23T18:09:04","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T17:09:04","slug":"new-collections-by-john-whale-and-tara-bergin-reviewed-by-john-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3112","title":{"rendered":"New collections from John Whale and Tara Bergin, reviewed by John North"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Whale, Frieze<\/em> (Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95
\nTara Bergin, This is Yarrow <\/em>(Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what to say about poetry any more. Lives and deaths. \u2018Fallen warriors, a conquistador, a cat [\u2026]\u2019 in John Whale\u2019s superb Frieze. Yes, I\u2019d noticed that cat. I loved it. I don\u2019t know why. \u201cNot my thing\u201d. I don\u2019t know if it had the weight of all poetry behind it or whether I simply felt it to be a good poem.<\/p>\n

A cat, of a cat, to a cat,
\na cat, O cat! [\u2026]
\nFor I will consider you
\nnow that you have gone
\nin the spirit of complete cat [\u2026]<\/p>\n

Like many elegiac collections, it is not a book full of death. Not war poems. Not necessarily poems of war. Not \u2018Where have they gone?\u2019 but \u2018Where are they heading [\u2026]?\u2019 in the title poem, \u2018Frieze\u2019. Movement or moments, \u2018the body breaking between | two worlds\u2019. (Falling Warrior). A body of poetry. \u2018Time and time again | he falls back down\u2019. (Footage)<\/p>\n

It fights into poetry. I do not mean that it struggles to be, or that it is something less (if there is such a thing) fighting to be more. It is word on paper like a \u2018thinning line of men | is scribbled into wire\u2019. (Footage) \u2018[S]ome brief discomfort between the sheets\u2019, between the pages, ending the poem \u2018Falling Warrior\u2019. And that last line of \u2018Trooper\u2019, left, the only line separated, \u2018and nothing at all behind it\u2019. Makes \u2018my favourite birdsong | heard only in books\u2019. <\/p>\n

It is not an easy thing, it is not difficult, this life (\u2018[\u2026] this life this life\u2019 ).<\/p>\n

So this is it.
\nThe moment at which
\nthis all too solid body
\nmelts into death \u2013
\nor at least a pose
\nwhich we must surely
\nrecognise as such \u2013 [\u2026]<\/p>\n

[\u2026] a tight fist
\nand a flexed forearm [\u2026]
\n\t\t\t\t(\u2018Falling Warrior\u2019)<\/p>\n

One feels that Frieze might, at times, be a lament for poems gone by, and, in elegising them, brings them back. But here is the final stanza from \u2018In Tagore\u2019s The Gardener\u2019:<\/p>\n

In that year before you died, you alight again upon this book,
\nyou\u2019d pulled down, second-hand, in Great Russell Street
\nand read that: You are one half woman and one half dream.
\nMusing on these poems twenty-fours years on from death,
\nI hear you moan about the pain, and the lack of wings.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

One would not think Tara Bergin\u2019s This is Yarrow a debut. It\u2019s mixed very well, the vocals do not falter. Water. She opens with water and it works. The Thames in the opener, \u2018Looking at Lucy\u2019s Painting of the Thames at Low Tide Without Lucy Present\u2019; and, in the second poem, \u2018Acting School\u2019:<\/p>\n

[\u2026]
\nswallowing air, as the Director says,
\nmight not be the same as swallowing water
\nbut for our purposes at least
\nthere is sufficient amount of physical truth
\nin what we do.<\/p>\n

\u2018Water is Difficult\u2019:<\/p>\n

But I have a thirst \/
\nI have a fear of \/ I have a sin of \u2013
\nand Lucy is on her knees before you, water,
\nadmitting that she might not believe.
\n\u2018What does it do, what does it do?\u2019
\nshe asks, \u2018except leave?\u2019<\/p>\n

Tell her before she herself decides to go:
\nThings break \u2013 even water.
\nWater must break
\nif we are to enter and live.<\/p>\n

Water and light, and birth, and sex, and prayer. From there, we move past the riverbank, and its \u2018Himalayan Balsam for a Soldier, inland. Where do poems come from, what do we do with them.<\/p>\n

I will go on to plagiarise
\nseveral well-known poets and writers
\nwithout citing their work
\nor acknowledging their influence on my thoughts in any way.
\nSee, for example, the epigraph to this abstract,
\na quote which was taken from the leader of the opposition in
\n Cairo (2011)
\nyet used here out of context in an entirely inappropriate setting.
\n\t\t\t\t\t(\u2018All Fools\u2019 Day: An Academic Farewell\u2019)<\/p>\n

\u2018[\u2026] Nineteen-Forty- | One: | a year too small for her to write in.\u2019 (\u2018The Undertaker\u2019s Tale of the Notebook Measuring 1 x 2 cm\u2019). \u2018Portrait of the Artist\u2019s Wife as a Younger Woman\u2019. \u2018If Painting Isn\u2019t Over\u2019 \u2013 <\/p>\n

If painting isn\u2019t over
\nI will admit this:
\nYou have offended your whole life.
\nYou have divided your days.
\nYou have taken your hands
\nand put them in the drawer.<\/p>\n

I think, like the recently reviewed The Simple Men, by David Troupes, a poem sometimes simply must come back to what it is \u2013 this! The last few lines of \u2018This is Yarrow\u2019, placed as the final poem:<\/p>\n

And when I woke and went to the window,
\nyour tender voice told me: this is yarrow,
\nthis is elder, this is the collared dove.<\/p>\n

One might think the trumpets of the yellow elder, and the dove, the Holy Spirit. Or in terms of colour. But, \u2018when I woke and went to the window, | your tender voice told me: this is yarrow, | this is elder, this is the collared dove.\u2019
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Whale, Frieze (Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95 Tara Bergin, This is Yarrow (Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95 I don\u2019t know what to say about poetry any more. Lives and deaths. \u2018Fallen warriors, a conquistador, a cat [\u2026]\u2019 in John Whale\u2019s superb Frieze. Yes, I\u2019d noticed that cat. I loved it. I don\u2019t know why. \u201cNot my thing\u201d. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew collections from John Whale and Tara Bergin, reviewed by John North - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3112\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New collections from John Whale and Tara Bergin, reviewed by John North - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Whale, Frieze (Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95 Tara Bergin, This is Yarrow (Carcanet Press) \u00a39.95 I don\u2019t know what to say about poetry any more. 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