{"id":5883,"date":"2016-01-26T20:02:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T19:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5883"},"modified":"2016-01-29T11:32:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T10:32:26","slug":"sarah-corbett-and-she-was-pavilion-9-99-reviewed-by-annie-muir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=5883","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Corbett, And She Was<\/em> (Pavilion) \u00a39.99, reviewed by Annie Muir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Corbett, And She Was <\/em>(Pavilion, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Annie Muir<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s used as the refrain in the titular Talking Heads song or as the central narrative device of Genesis, the word \u2018and\u2019 holds the English language together like braces worn by teenagers to close the gaps in their teeth. In Genesis, as in all narratives, there is one thing and then there is another thing. In the infamous creation story: he was, and then she was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sarah Corbett\u2019s 2015 book And She Was: A Verse-Novel<\/em>, written for her PhD at the University of Manchester\u2019s Centre for New Writing, is about a \u2018He\u2019 and a \u2018She\u2019. The first part of the \u2018Nocturne in Three Movements\u2019 begins:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And she was<\/p>\n

Grist to his mill<\/p>\n

And he was<\/p>\n

Grit to her pearl<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This poem is a list of metaphors that demonstrate the way this \u2018he\u2019 and \u2018she\u2019 complete each other. The images become longer and more complicated and then gradually simplify again, until it concludes:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And they were laughing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and laughing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and could not stop<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The shift in form here suggests that the prior images of completeness were actually incomplete, because the words \u2018he\u2019 and \u2018she\u2019 were held apart by the white space of the page. But now \u2018they\u2019 are joined together in a laughter that excludes everyone outside of these two people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the next \u2018Nocturne\u2019, \u2018(C Major)\u2019, the form shifts drastically into eight line stanza blocks, where moments of relapse into the \u2018and he was\u2019\/\u2019and she was\u2019 refrain are presented as interruptions in a seasonal narrative of the couple\u2019s \u00a0\u2018first year\u2019. In this narrative, the repetition of \u2018and\u2019 takes us quickly from: \u2018and it was midsummer and they took off north\/ to the coast,\u2019 to next year:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and summer wouldn\u2019t come and summer stayed away<\/p>\n

and they ran out of talk and they ran out of money<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is followed by another series of metaphors: but, where in the first nocturne he was \u2018scratch to her itch,\u2019 now he is \u2018meat to her trap\u2019 and she is \u2018noose to his neck\u2019. This shift from love to violence is reminiscent of Hughes\u2019s poem \u2018Lovesong\u2019 from Crow<\/em>, which begins simply, \u2018He loved her and she loved him,\u2019 but descends into:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His words were occupying armies<\/p>\n

Her laughs were an assassin\u2019s attempts<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hughes\u2019s violent imagery and harshness of syllables is extremely present in this section of Corbett\u2019s book. This is followed by another change of form, in \u2018(E Minor)\u2019, where lines float about the page as if they too were \u2018falling\u2019 out of love like the couple depicted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These \u2018Nocturnes\u2019 seem to condense the entire rise and fall of a relationship into a few pages. This is done by reducing the relationship itself into its most basic elements: a chain of events held together by \u2018and[s]\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The largest, middle section of the book, \u2018The Runner\u2019, is a surreal narrative made up of four line stanzas that travel diagonally down the page, like staircases. The repetitive, static form of this section seems to control the content rather than the other way round, unlike the preceding and following sections, where the forms fluctuate to fit the material being presented.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An example of Corbett\u2019s efficient use of form is the poem, \u2018A Conversation over Breakfast\u2019, in the final section, \u2018Pinkie\u2019. Here, she uses indented stanzas to cleverly distinguish between the two consciousnesses simultaneously contained within a single \u2018I\u2019. At the same time as: \u2018I tell her about my book,\u2019 we hear that:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He talks with passion,<\/p>\n

And there is a little curve<\/p>\n

Of distaste at the corner<\/p>\n

Of his mouth on certain words:<\/p>\n

Parent, book, critic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I am careful not to listen<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The way that one speaker focuses in onto the mouth and words of the other correlates with the way that this poem focuses in on one particular moment of the complex, constantly moving relationship(s) presented within the different sections of the book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is a book full of shocks. Some shocks arise from the use of clich\u00e9s – such as the poem arranged into the shape of a heart on the page \u2013 and others are through the use of raw material \u2013 such as the harrowing first-person account of a rape victim, who recalls:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They put me under where you don\u2019t dream.<\/p>\n

I woke re-stitched, the pain a distant<\/p>\n

Ship I could wave to but not reach<\/p>\n

Sailing its quiet ellipsis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In these lines \u2018pain\u2019 is compared to both a \u2018ship\u2019 and an \u2018ellipsis\u2019. An \u2018ellipsis\u2019 emphasizes a void, but it also bridges that void by addressing it: by \u2018sailing\u2019 past it. Corbett\u2019s book is proof that whenever there is something difficult to say, there is always another \u2018and\u2019 that can be used to force the words out of your self and onto the page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Corbett, And She Was (Pavilion, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Annie Muir   Whether it\u2019s used as the refrain in the titular Talking Heads song or as the central narrative device of Genesis, the word \u2018and\u2019 holds the English language together like braces worn by teenagers to close the gaps in their teeth. In Genesis, as […]<\/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":"\nSarah Corbett, And She Was (Pavilion) \u00a39.99, reviewed by Annie Muir - 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=5883\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sarah Corbett, And She Was (Pavilion) \u00a39.99, reviewed by Annie Muir - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sarah Corbett, And She Was (Pavilion, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Annie Muir   Whether it\u2019s used as the refrain in the titular Talking Heads song or as the central narrative device of Genesis, the word \u2018and\u2019 holds the English language together like braces worn by teenagers to close the gaps in their teeth. 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