{"id":6090,"date":"2016-02-11T13:11:08","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T12:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6090"},"modified":"2016-02-15T10:40:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T09:40:51","slug":"stephen-payne-pattern-beyond-chance-happenstance-10-00","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6090","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Payne, Pattern Beyond Chance<\/em> (Happenstance) \u00a310.00"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Payne Pattern Beyond Chance (<\/em>Happenstance, \u00a310.00)<\/p>\n

\u2018Stephen Payne\u2019s academic background is in psychology\u2019 says the first line of the blurb on the back of Payne\u2019s Happenstance collection.\u00a0 And this book is quite often about the scientist as poet.\u00a0 It is broken down into four sections:\u00a0 Design; Word; Mind & Time \u2013 so asking the big questions one suspects. And each of those sections contains occasionally abstruse quotations from eminent figures in the history of psychology, each quotation dutifully referenced in full Harvard style!!\u00a0 So, on the surface at least, there is a slightly four-square attitude struck in this book.\u00a0 We might assume that the book might present the scientist as slightly more \u2018human\u2019 and \u2018romantic\u2019 than the \u2018public perception\u2019 might have us believe.<\/p>\n

And there is an element of that.\u00a0 In the poem \u2018The Scientific Method\u2019, the narrator (and it\u2019s clear that the \u2018I\u2019 in these poems is Payne, himself) discusses with his daughter the fact that she has \u2018noticed the way grown-up books\/ print the author\u2019s name bigger than the title\/ but books for kids have things the other way round\u2019.\u00a0 Slightly below this, the narrator\/Payne comments \u2018You\u2019re a scientist, <\/em>\u2026and I\u2019m your Research Assistant\u2019<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 The two then go around the house investigating the daughter\u2019s observation.\u00a0 The exception to the rule is Roald Dahl, whose name is bigger than the title.\u00a0 Noticing his daughter \u2018deflate a little\u2019, he explains, \u2018What matters is the tendency, the pattern\/ beyond chance, which calls for an explanation\u2019.<\/p>\n

If a central premise of the book is the scientist as poet, the book is also very much the poet as scientist; the empiricist poet following deductive logic where it might lead. This means that the poet observes carefully and sees where that takes you. And there is no doubt in this book that Payne is a highly empathetic empiricist, who observes carefully and astutely and whose conclusions are nuanced and sensitive. That kind of description makes the book sound cold, but this is one of those very rare books of poetry which gives the definite sense of the warmth of personality of the writer. \u00a0The second section of the book, \u2018Word\u2019, is particularly effective in these ways. Particularly moving is the poem \u2018Dyslexia\u2019, which I\u2019ll quote in full:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A hard thing to explain to an eight-year-old.<\/p>\n

How to lift from everything we know<\/p>\n

a clutch of truths by which he\u2019ll be consoled.<\/p>\n

I keep to what it doesn\u2019t mean, name<\/p>\n

the famous cases.\u00a0 Hard to answer no<\/p>\n

when he asks quietly, Are you the same?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>This is not only beautifully paced and structured, but here the scientist is forced to evade the logical end of the thoughts.\u00a0 Of course, that opening line is carefully heart-string pulling, with its neat elision of \u2018It is\u2019 from the beginning of the line.\u00a0 Then Payne shows the dilemma of the adult in trying to console.\u00a0 And then that final line, so deftly yet so completely heart-stopping.<\/p>\n

One thing that should be noted is Payne\u2019s wry sense of humour; poems about anything from the development of taxi drivers\u2019 brains to the filming of a Doctor Who episode, outside his house in Penarth. One would be tempted to suggest that Payne has an English sense of humour were it not that he is clearly quite a proud Welshman. The book also contains a wonderful poem about Glenn Gould.\u00a0 It finishes with a fine poem on walking to a pier which turns into a lovely memory of his father.\u00a0 This is a very fine book; one of those quiet books which should garner much more recognition than it might.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ian Pople<\/p>\n

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

Stephen Payne Pattern Beyond Chance (Happenstance, \u00a310.00) \u2018Stephen Payne\u2019s academic background is in psychology\u2019 says the first line of the blurb on the back of Payne\u2019s Happenstance collection.\u00a0 And this book is quite often about the scientist as poet.\u00a0 It is broken down into four sections:\u00a0 Design; Word; Mind & Time \u2013 so asking the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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":"\nStephen Payne, Pattern Beyond Chance (Happenstance) \u00a310.00 - 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=6090\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stephen Payne, Pattern Beyond Chance (Happenstance) \u00a310.00 - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stephen Payne Pattern Beyond Chance (Happenstance, \u00a310.00) \u2018Stephen Payne\u2019s academic background is in psychology\u2019 says the first line of the blurb on the back of Payne\u2019s Happenstance collection.\u00a0 And this book is quite often about the scientist as poet.\u00a0 It is broken down into four sections:\u00a0 Design; 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