{"id":4519,"date":"2015-02-13T07:37:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T07:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4519"},"modified":"2016-01-23T16:25:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T15:25:57","slug":"owen-lowery-rego-retold-carcanet-12-99-reviewed-by-charlotte-rowland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4519","title":{"rendered":"Owen Lowery, Rego Retold<\/em> (Carcanet Press) \u00a312.99, reviewed by Charlotte Rowland"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Paula Rego\u2019s art is, first and foremost, about the body, Rego Retold<\/i>, containing Owen Lowery\u2019s poetic responses to this idea, are themselves separate nods to portraiture. Romance, though somewhat of a distilled notion for Rego, whose subjects are often portrayed as brawny, animalistic, or openly distressed, is utilised by Lowery to draw out the underlying tender aspects inherent to the paintings:<\/p>\n

Nothing, hardly a murmur
\nbetween her fingers as they wrap
\nthemselves round him and as they trap
\nas much of him as they can.<\/p>\n

Here, in \u2018Piet\u00e0\u2019, though the act of cradling loses some of the terror or repulsion which haunts Rego\u2019s visual, the intimacy of the two figures involved is not fully embraced. As the \u2018fingers\u2019 of the first subject \u2018wrap\u2019 \u2018round\u2019 the second, the silence that is momentarily let into the poem becomes immediately oppressive, as the gentle sentimentality of \u2018wrap\u2019 leads in sequence to the following rhymed verb-ending \u2018trap\u2019, hinting at rules of dominance, duty and subjective compliance.<\/p>\n

The critical pronoun \u2018themselves\u2019, furthermore, suggests a lack of self-control, and a loss of full bodily administration which, compliantly, is key to many Rego works, as the \u2018fingers\u2019 appear to move almost automatically, highlighting and commenting on Rego\u2019s traumatising lack of fullness in the body. What Lowery does with this physical distortion, however, is interesting, as not only do his poems denote the prospect of transformation, but they also fulfil it, often allowing their subjects to find intimacy, and accomplish the notions of sentimentality Rego\u2019s paintings seem to crave, but fear.<\/p>\n

Rego\u2019s bodies, often captured in scenes where there the exact emotional circumstance is difficult to gauge, and where there is little to proffer in terms of hope, are transformed and, in one sense, freed by Lowery, whose versed ideas of texture and tactile belonging elevate the body to a space of spiritual resolve:<\/p>\n

His eyes close
\nto anything less alive<\/p>\n

than the weight of love
\nmending him, her finger-tips
\nsaving how he feels
\nto her<\/p>\n

In \u2018Departure\u2019, the interaction between the two lovers is again announced through a sensitive notice of \u2018finger-tips\u2019, whereby the gentle touch of the woman produces a contentious kind of suffering in the man, who is reduced to her authority. By seeing the body in parts, Lowery not only adapts and converses with Rego\u2019s brushstrokes, which are angular and virile for the way they harshly portray the structure of the human body, but he also comments upon the way in which this way of seeing a relationship can be utilised, and how uncovering a moment in parts can yield both planned and unplanned prospects.<\/p>\n

Despite sounding intentional in tone and context, however, the poems none-the-less seem to be constantly looking over their own shoulders; unsure, always offering an alternative to avoid the circumstance of decision:<\/p>\n

No traces, though
\nof breath deflecting the glossing
\nher skin shimmers. Unless it\u2019s slowed
\nto such an extent each one learns<\/p>\n

what it means, before the next slips
\naway.<\/p>\n

For Lowery, this hesitant going-over, seen here in his tantalisingly discreet poem \u2018Sleeper\u2019, allows his poems an escape from certitude, permitting them to cherish the here and now. The finality and banality of definition, for Lowery and Rego, then, is distasteful, as by being tolerant of poise, possibility and movement, the poems and the paintings brush up against the abstraction of art itself, sensibly challenging their own permanence and decisions.<\/p>\n

Yet, seen in language, Rego’s exceptional use of stillness and attention to poise is ultimately overthrown, as the form and argument of the poem challenge how and why any developed movement should be left unengaged:<\/p>\n

From imago through to adult
\ntakes the space of a night, and gone, transforming<\/p>\n

only what they’ve alighted on, and only,
\neven there, for as long as they were noticed.<\/p>\n

Here, in Lowery\u2019s \u2018Getting Ready for the Ball\u2019, progression is important, even critical, as it is what will allow the development of the individual subject, as well as promote the ongoing ritual of daily comings and goings.<\/p>\n

When movement does enter the poems, though, it is temporary, and uncovered only in the form of minor details, through which a glimpse of Rego\u2019s impermanence can be caught:<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll dream hands
\nreaching up and exploring his. A hurried
\nbreath will gradually steady to a hoarse word.<\/p>\n

Geppetto Washing Pinocchio\u2019, entangling themes of labour, concentration and fancy, alights the notion of pausing a moment with the idea of transformation, where even a \u2018hurried\/ breath\u2019 only changes into \u2018a hoarse word\u2019, and is not lost entirely. The momentum with which this happens, however, imbued with the ambling, whimsical connotations of \u2018dream\u2019, sets this revolution apart from the context of the poem, so that the idea of being committed to a moment, and being able to withhold abstracts, is, as in Rego\u2019s paintings, merely thought of, but not achieved.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most dynamic factor of Rego’s work is not that her scenes make the idea of opportunity for movement prevalent, but, on the contrary, that they set that movement at permanent odds with the stillness of the painting. Whether or not art is dependent on the act of seeing, there is no doubt that the dynamic interplay between a visual and the thoughts it prompts is integral to the ways Lowery\u2019s art is projected:<\/p>\n

He watches her fingers graze
\nacross his image, sees what life might do
\nto them as she draws him sleeping<\/p>\n

Seeing art, made utopic and sensual in \u2018Joseph\u2019s Dream\u2019, allows for the system of communication between viewed and viewer to collapse, subsiding, at the same time, the mystique surrounding why and how we examine:<\/p>\n

Between them
\nthey\u2019ll have him right. They\u2019ll dress him and clean him
\nas often as it takes. They\u2019ll raise him
\nas an image in his own place.<\/p>\n

Both quizzical to the idea of family and perceptive of the duty such a formation condones, Lowery\u2019s \u2018The Family\u2019 abuses the set-up of Rego\u2019s homely scene by replacing the male figure or father with \u2018an image\u2019 which is more alike art, or the poem, itself. The act of responding to visual art, in this light, is unseen, unshaped and, for the fact we can usually never determine the strength of our reaction, often unintentional. When you begin to put that process into poetry, however, the form of thought becomes less abstract, as form itself is utilised as a malleable prospect capable of rationalising and visualising the invisible aspects of visual art: they\u2019ll sleep together blending \/half-light into their common cause.<\/p>\n

Uniting bodies, partners, \u2018half-light\u2019 and a separation from life made so by \u2018sleep\u2019, Lowery\u2019s \u2018Looking Back\u2019 encapsulates just how intrinsic Rego\u2019s concealment of natural nurture and need is. No matter the relationship, the level of affection, or the level of wisdom, Lowery\u2019s poems confide in the notion of passion, as feverous for art and visuals as they are for abstracts, sentiment and intangible signs of lust.
\n 
\nCharlotte Rowland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Paula Rego\u2019s art is, first and foremost, about the body, Rego Retold, containing Owen Lowery\u2019s poetic responses to this idea, are themselves separate nods to portraiture. Romance, though somewhat of a distilled notion for Rego, whose subjects are often portrayed as brawny, animalistic, or openly distressed, is utilised by Lowery to draw out the […]<\/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":"\nOwen Lowery, Rego Retold (Carcanet Press) \u00a312.99, reviewed by Charlotte Rowland - 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=4519\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Owen Lowery, Rego Retold (Carcanet Press) \u00a312.99, reviewed by Charlotte Rowland - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If Paula Rego\u2019s art is, first and foremost, about the body, Rego Retold, containing Owen Lowery\u2019s poetic responses to this idea, are themselves separate nods to portraiture. 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