{"id":8390,"date":"2017-08-09T08:54:02","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T07:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2017-08-11T10:52:15","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T09:52:15","slug":"edward-doegar-for-now-and-rebecca-tamas-savage-clinic-press-reviewed-by-annie-muir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8390","title":{"rendered":"Edward Doegar, <em>For Now<\/em> and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s, <em>Savage<\/em> (Clinic Press), reviewed by Annie Muir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two strikingly presented new pamphlets have been published by Clinic this year \u2013 Edward Doegar\u2019s <em>For Now<\/em> with its bold misaligned capitals and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s\u2019s <em>Savage<\/em> with its inverted abstract countryside scene.<\/p>\n<p>Fifteen and nine poems respectively, both offer a one-sitting-sized taste of their author\u2019s main concerns. Doegar\u2019s first poem \u2018Anon\u2019 begins:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">I don\u2019t want to come across<br \/>\nToo me me me<br \/>\nBut I do want to be honest<\/p>\n<p>The most important thing in the world<br \/>\nTo me right now<br \/>\nIs finding you the right shampoo<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>What follows is a collection of poems that dwell on superficiality. Employing sarcasm and emphatic W.C. Williams inspired line-breaks, and ditching punctuation, Doegar begins with a series of Michael Macintyre-style observational poems that pick dryly at the surface of day to day reality. \u2018Even So\u2019 speaks of \u2018pound shop priorities\u2019 and \u2018tap water\u2019, while in \u2018Answers\u2019 the speaker notes that:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">The poor grow senile<br \/>\nDifferently<\/p>\n<p>In public<br \/>\nAt the end of checkout lines<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Portrayal: A Double Portrait\u2019 stands out because of its direct address to a \u2018you\u2019 and its brave and memorable imagery, concluded in the final lines:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">I am as unbroken water<br \/>\nMirror me<br \/>\nLet us be two mirrors<\/p>\n<p>Let no one be left looking<br \/>\nAt themselves<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>After the middle page of the pamphlet \u2013 where you would pull out the staples with your fingernails to get the poster out from a teen magazine \u2013 the poems themselves become more sincere and anecdotal. The speaker starts to withdraw from the surface and instead look backwards \u2013 to losing a friend \u2018In the Louvre at seventeen\u2019 (\u2018Voyeurs\u2019) and another friend pinning his younger brother down on the carpet to plant a kiss \u2018Deep onto his [\u2026]\/Small refusing lips\u2019 (\u2018History\u2019).<\/p>\n<p>These anecdotes, as well as the places named in them \u2013 Eastern Ukraine, British Jerusalem, Vietnam, Essex \u2013 are never innocent. The poems are attempted neat solutions to complicated, unsolved problems, at their best when they are not sure what they want to try and solve \u2013 as in \u2018High\u2019 where:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">The true<br \/>\nNutritional<\/p>\n<p>Value<br \/>\nOf a cake<\/p>\n<p>Of soap<br \/>\nCould be<\/p>\n<p>The solution<br \/>\nTo something<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>In <em>Savage<\/em>, Tam\u00e1s also gets straight to the point in the first poem, which begins:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">please turn around<\/p>\n<p>this is all of my love desperately<br \/>\nfinding itself<\/p>\n<p>This poem, named \u2018BDSM\u2019, slowly unfolds as a joke users-manual:<\/p>\n<p>wrap your brests\/penis\/other<br \/>\nup in leather-like material<br \/>\nread john stuart mill<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The frequent references to \u2018sperm\u2019, \u2018spunk\u2019, and \u2018come\u2019 could put some people off, but the frankness and comic timing of the speakers voice often made me laugh out loud:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">yes girls have sperm<br \/>\nbut we call it feelings<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>This pamphlet is also divided into two sections before and after the staples \u2013 the second signalled by its own title \u2018Mystics\u2019.\u00a0These are a series of six poems named after specific people from history. Here, as in that very first poem, philosophical figures are tangled up in carnal language, often relating to food. In \u2018Simone Weil\u2019 the speaker states \u2018I hope to eat, to put things in my mouth,\u2019 and the final poem \u2018Joan of Arc\u2019 opens with the bold statement \u2018I saw god in a split yolk\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>If this pamphlet\u2019s main concern is sex, this poem is the climax. As in Doegar\u2019s \u2018Portayal\u2019 and \u2018Anon\u2019, this poem directly addresses a \u2018you\u2019 while also screaming \u2018me me me\u2019:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">When I\u2019m dancing you could find me attractive,<br \/>\nmy scruffy head and my slightly bent teeth,<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>You could find me attractive when I\u2019m polishing my<br \/>\nglasses, when you smell my jeans after I\u2019ve been<\/p>\n<p>in them<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>After the long build up of abstract events and phrases these small visual details relating to a speaker feel like a spotlight which is then emphasised by the final theatrical monologue where the speaker implores us to \u2018stay, human animals\u2019:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 3em;\">Stay so I can smell<br \/>\nyour familiar<br \/>\nand tender<br \/>\nhuman foulness.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<h5>Annie Muir<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two strikingly presented new pamphlets have been published by Clinic this year \u2013 Edward Doegar\u2019s For Now with its bold misaligned capitals and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s\u2019s Savage with its inverted abstract countryside scene. Fifteen and nine poems respectively, both offer a one-sitting-sized taste of their author\u2019s main concerns. Doegar\u2019s first poem \u2018Anon\u2019 begins: I don\u2019t want [&hellip;]<\/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":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Edward Doegar, For Now and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s, Savage (Clinic Press), 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=8390\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Edward Doegar, For Now and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s, Savage (Clinic Press), reviewed by Annie Muir - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Two strikingly presented new pamphlets have been published by Clinic this year \u2013 Edward Doegar\u2019s For Now with its bold misaligned capitals and Rebecca Tam\u00e1s\u2019s Savage with its inverted abstract countryside scene. 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