{"id":7360,"date":"2017-02-22T19:21:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T18:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7360"},"modified":"2017-02-22T19:21:38","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T18:21:38","slug":"rebecca-watts-the-met-office-advises-caution-reviewed-by-lucy-winrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=7360","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution<\/em>, reviewed by Lucy Winrow"},"content":{"rendered":"
Rebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution<\/em> (Carcanet, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Lucy Winrow.<\/h5>\n

 
\nThe delicate cover illustration of The Met Office Advises Caution<\/em> features a tiny figure outside a burning house, clinging to another figure as it floats away. The scene is arranged in a circular pattern of wispy flowers and birds that \u2013 depending on their position \u2013 appear to be flying or falling. It well reflects the ambivalence and fragility of human experience that Rebecca Watts explores in her debut collection: the life-death cycle and the relationship between the human and natural world. Watts has described being drawn to animals: \u201ctheir un-self consciousness and their (in the main) indifference to me is liberating.\u201d It seems that against the backdrop of the natural world, Watts finds the freedom to probe unsettling thoughts and emotions.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Two Bats,\u2019 a bat enters a couple\u2019s home on two separate occasions. The first incident takes place \u201cfour floors up\u201d in an urban location: \u201cthough it hadn\u2019t meant to come, its two short flights \/ cast suspicion on the room, before it joined us, trembling.\u201d To negate its disconcerting presence, the speaker anthropomorphises the bat as \u201ca baby\u201d and ascribes it with human emotions: \u201cno bigger than a thumb; a pulse. Humbled, \/ it held still as we slid the pint glass under \/ then raised it slowly to the moon.\u201d When this happens again, this time in a rural setting, the interaction is altogether different: \u201cthe second was sent. Full-grown, \/ it knew its way around the landscape better than I \/ who\u2019d thrown the sash down early to inhale the moors.\u201d The speaker\u2019s composure stalls in unfamiliar surroundings; fear is evident in the irrational notion that the bat was \u201csent\u201d and is \u201cissuing a challenge\u201d:<\/p>\n

When I hit the switch for the big light
\nit flung itself back and forth above our heads,
\na glove, issuing a challenge over and over.
\nNo instincts rose. Perhaps we were too familiar;
\nperhaps we already knew that if it settled
\nwe\u2019d be repulsed by black eyes, membranous skin,
\nbared teeth like a little man\u2019s.<\/div>\n

 
\nThe observation \u201cperhaps we were too familiar\u201d is delivered with a jolt after the caesura, altering the course of the poem. Just as the bat\u2019s \u2018breach\u2019 disrupts the humanly-constructed divide between humans and other animals, it unearths discontent in the couple\u2019s relationship. The first-person plural narration which described a nurturing mutual response in the first stanza, now communicates shared dread. The animal\u2019s body, grimly detailed despite their averted eyes, evokes a suppressed problem. With a hint of shame, \u201csomeone else \/ nobler with a tea towel\u201d is left to deal with the bat, as unresolved thoughts persist: \u201cthough we were left to sleep, \/ something hung on in the dark between us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other encounters with animals prompt ruminations on mortality in the poems. \u2018The Hare\u2019 focuses on a hare\u2019s final moments after being hit by a car, and the slowed-down horror of its struggle to cling to life: \u201clike a hot baby in the act of waking, \/ coming round to the sense of a mother \/ somewhere, to justify its reaching.\u201d This paradoxical image simulates the moment between life and death where the animal teeters, assimilating the speaker’s futile urge to protect it. The unflinching focus intensifies in the final lines, closing in on the animal\u2019s face:<\/p>\n

its mouth closing and opening,
\nshaping a soundless cry to the morning
\nand its big black eyes gaping
\nas though looking for an exit.<\/div>\n

 
\nWith an open mouth and \u201cgaping\u201d eyes, the hare appears \u2018speechless\u2019 with shock; this also creates the sensation of being swallowed, enveloping the reader in thoughts of their own mortality. The speaker stares with morbid fascination into the hare\u2019s cavernous eyes, likewise unable to escape the situation. The public, exposed nature of death in the wild allows Watts to contemplate death and the dying body in a way that might feel too direct or repellent with a human subject. This can similarly be seen in \u2018The Molecatcher\u2019s Warning\u2019:<\/p>\n

Nobody asked or answered questions out there.
\nTen miles from the nearest anywhere
\nthe landscape was a disbanded library<\/p>\n

Only the moles remained,
\nstrung on a barbed wire fence,
\na dozen antiquated books forced open.<\/p><\/div>\n

Contrary to the opening line, the scene asks a question of the viewer. Described as a \u201cdisbanded library,\u201d the order and meaning it once conveyed has dwindled over time, just as the moles\u2019 bodies have decayed: \u201cnot a scrap hanging on \/ inside the stretched skins, \/ their spines disintegrating.\u201d Viewed afresh through a stranger\u2019s eyes, the scene is interpreted as a warning: \u201cRead in me<\/em> \/ they wanted to declare \/ how it all ends<\/em>,\u201d but the aim is questionable if \u201ctheir kin \/ can\u2019t read anything \/ but earth.\u201d Ultimately, these bodies \u2013 \u201cforced open\u201d and displayed by human hands \u2013 bear a message only humans can understand as, unlike moles who seem immersed in living, they are constantly aware of their transience on earth. <\/p>\n

Conventional notions of romantic coupling are defamiliarised in \u2018On Marriage,\u2019 as the intuitive anglerfish (\u201cambivalence impossible \/ they fuse \u2013 symbiotic \/ so never let go\u201d) is juxtaposed with contrived human attempts at intimacy: \u201cOn land, though, \/ before that bold witness, the sun \/ how does she<\/em> lure him<\/em>?\u201d Mimicking the nature documentary voice-over, the tone highlights the behavioural differences between humans and other animals. The dilemma of human connection is frustrated by doubt and a lack of predetermined, external guidance:<\/p>\n

what chemicals ride the air between
\nto hook him on a scented thing?
\na self no better than himself
\n(her blood circulating in her body)
\n(his blood circulating in his body)<\/div>\n

 
\nThe un-traversable distance between the bodies is emphasised by closed brackets; isolated from one another, they must construct their own bonding process:<\/p>\n

a proposal breaches skin
\nlike a bite on the belly<\/p>\n

marine snow makes
\nbeautiful confetti.<\/p><\/div>\n

The act of biting feels foolish and arbitrary, and while it presumably leaves a mark in a vulnerable area, this is temporary and will heal over. The final two lines, which refer to biological debris falling through the ocean, echo the poem\u2019s earlier sentiment that what occurs naturally in water must be manufactured on land.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the collection, a subtle shift in perspective takes place. In the opening poem \u2018Realism,\u2019 the speaker remarks matter-of-factly that a tree is \u201ca prop \/ for the sagging sky\u201d and concludes: \u201cI believe the tree \/ and note it down as the answer \/ to its own question.\u201d However, this assured tone falters mid-way through the book in \u2018Insomniac,\u2019 where the sleepless speaker (\u201cwalking the towpath \/ cheeks pale \/ I am dissolving\u201d) seems crave order in the natural world as if to stave off a dissipating sense-of-self: \u201call I want \/ is everything to slot into \/ its proper place: \/ flat sky, round moon, straight path, dark river.\u201d This suggests that the two are deeply connected but as other poems have shown, this is not within our control. The penultimate poem \u2018Christmas Day\u2019 revisits the subject of marriage as the speaker \u2013 \u201cHome, yes \/ unmarried, yes\u201d \u2013 senses their failure to comply with a familial or social expectation which, as previously established, feels absurd. To avoid the situation, the speaker goes walking and once again, encounters with nature seem to provoke more questions that it offers answers: <\/p>\n

and all the trees
\nlike disciples, arms thrown up
\n                    in love<\/p>\n

or surrender, or
\nwhatever they hold themselves
\n          open for<\/p><\/div>\n

There is no full stop to the final line, no concrete answer. The speaker seems to have arrived at a point where coming to terms with human existence is seen as a process of being observant, open and questioning, shunning neat conclusions \u2013 however tempting \u2013 and facing the uncertainties. <\/p>\n

Lucy Winrow<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution (Carcanet, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Lucy Winrow.   The delicate cover illustration of The Met Office Advises Caution features a tiny figure outside a burning house, clinging to another figure as it floats away. The scene is arranged in a circular pattern of wispy flowers and birds that \u2013 […]<\/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":"\nRebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution, reviewed by Lucy Winrow - 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=7360\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution, reviewed by Lucy Winrow - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rebecca Watts, The Met Office Advises Caution (Carcanet, \u00a39.99), reviewed by Lucy Winrow.   The delicate cover illustration of The Met Office Advises Caution features a tiny figure outside a burning house, clinging to another figure as it floats away. 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