{"id":9018,"date":"2017-12-21T15:35:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9018"},"modified":"2017-12-22T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T09:34:19","slug":"maryam-hessavi-on-lachlan-mackinnons-doves-faber-14-99-reviewed-by-maryam-hessavi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=9018","title":{"rendered":"Lachlan Mackinnon, <em>Doves<\/em>, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Lachlan Mackinnon, <em>Doves<\/em> (Faber, \u00a314.99).<\/h5>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i66.tinypic.com\/2whpb44.jpg\" width=\"190\" align=\"left\" style=\"margin:\n 10px\"><em>Doves<\/em> is Mackinnon\u2019s fifth collection of poetry. Following on from his last collection <em>Small Hours<\/em>, shortlisted in 2010 for the Forward Prize for Poetry, his new work marks a departure from a previously more delicate style.<\/p>\n<p><em>Doves <\/em>is more forthright. In its style it is concerned most noticeably with form and lyricism, where rhyme and sound pattern often supersede attention to the word in each line \u2013 an effect that hinders some of the poems development of their material. Ironically, an overarching attention to sound impedes the expectation that the lyric style sets up, in that the short snappy sentence constructions can seem blunt and mechanical.<\/p>\n<p>In \u2018Carol\u2019, comprised of seven rhyming-couplet quatrains, the <em>aabb<\/em> form is fervently adhered to, yet the end-rhymes themselves feel sonically contrived: \u2018annihilate\u2019\/ \u2018fate\u2019, \u2018manger\u2019\/ \u2018stranger\u2019, \u2018wakes\u2019\/ \u2018makes\u2019, \u2018days\u2019\/ \u2018raise\u2019, \u2018dead\u2019 \/ \u2018unfed\u2019, \u2018soul\u2019! \/ \u2018dole\u2019 \/ \u2018things\u2019, \u2018sings\u2019, and so on. It is hard to justify the use of words like \u2018dead\u2019 and \u2018soul\u2019 in <em>any<\/em> contemporary poem, except in the circumstance of some excellent recalibration of the word and all its weighted heritage. Mackinnon is not so interested in such modulations of received wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>These are poems in which we meet old favourites: \u2018love\u2019, \u2018death\u2019, \u2018exile\u2019, \u2018decades\u2019, \u2018desire\u2019, \u2018moon\u2019, \u2018hopes\u2019, \u2018broke the spirit\u2019, \u2018forgotten your grave\u2019, \u2018in the last hours\u2019, \u2018dying flower\u2019, \u2018dreams\u2019, \u2018wisdom\u2019, \u2018the songs of birds\u2019, \u2018immorality\u2019, \u2018refugees\u2019, \u2018corpse\u2019, \u2018birdsong\u2019, \u2018Doves&#8230;I thought about love\u2019, \u2018leaves of autumn\u2019, \u2018ghosts\u2019, \u2018memories, but of something\/ unstained and pure\u2019&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This raises a further point of contention, namely, which is that the tendency to fall back on clich\u00e9 often occurs at crucial turns in the poems. In \u2018Nocturne\u2019:<\/p>\n<p>and I recall our walk through fields one dawn<br \/>\nwhen the first bird chirped from the trees around,<br \/>\nthen all, to ring us with ecstatic sound.<\/p>\n<p>The second line in this excerpt can almost be pre-empted at the point of \u2018dawn\u2019, but instead fills in the image too predictably.<\/p>\n<p>If poetry is to do something new, then with all the best intention and generosity in reading, it\u2019s impossible not to ask how a poem set in Paris talks so candidly about \u2018love\u2019 and \u2018death\u2019:<\/p>\n<p>Jardin du Luxembourg<\/p>\n<p>A young man not unlike myself at this age,<br \/>\na touch less inhibited,<br \/>\narm around his girl: \u2018We know what the point<br \/>\nof love is but death, no,<br \/>\nnobody knows\u2019, and the coloured sails<br \/>\nof little boats one way then another.<\/p>\n<p>There is small recovery at the end, in the move towards a more vividly generous landscape for the piece, but is it enough to balance the opening scenario\u2019s obviousness?<\/p>\n<p>These observations are difficult to highlight in a review, because there is a hope that all work in poetry would be read generously despite individual taste with an appreciation for the craft at hand.\u00a0 And there <em>are<\/em> instances of technical diligence when it comes to sound patterns, particularly in the less overt instances of rhyme and rhythm:<\/p>\n<p>like a wobble-board, woop<\/p>\n<p>through the milkbottle clank<br \/>\nof the chassis<br \/>\nbouncing along.<\/p>\n<p>Another fine moment, and something that the collection requires more of in aid of balancing some of the weighted language expended throughout, is in the sequential piece \u2018II Richard (1574 \u2013 1613)\u2019 from \u2018Will\u2019s Brothers\u2019:<\/p>\n<p>It was as though he\u2019d taken<br \/>\nour childhood with him in a little box<br \/>\nand brought it back with all its colours sharpened.<\/p>\n<p>This is gorgeous. And whilst there appears to be a philosophical thread throughout the work for the rejection or renewal of the symbol (\u2018but listen to his language\/ for the slightest sign\u2019 and \u2018They [Two collared doves] weren\u2019t symbolic\u2019), and by his preference for sonic and formal patterning, the collection suffers for that and its lack of more instances of such imagery and complex sonic richness. That visual anchorage and metaphor is essential, but is fleeting in <em>Doves<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The title poem \u2018Doves\u2019 begins well in this respect, utilising more visual fastenings (\u2018She\/ had a damaged feather and a more trusting nature\u2019) and language in a less ordinary way than many of the other poems: \u2018like raw newly-weds\u2019, but does slip into less inventive phrasing after the first stanza.<\/p>\n<p>This is a difficult collection, in that it broaches a wide range of themes and topics, which cannot be accounted for here. Mackinnon risks engaging with the most well-worn aspects of the poetic tradition, and the poems do not always survive that engagement on their own terms.<\/p>\n<h5>Maryam Hessavi<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lachlan Mackinnon, Doves (Faber, \u00a314.99). Doves is Mackinnon\u2019s fifth collection of poetry. Following on from his last collection Small Hours, shortlisted in 2010 for the Forward Prize for Poetry, his new work marks a departure from a previously more delicate style. Doves is more forthright. In its style it is concerned most noticeably with form [&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>Lachlan Mackinnon, Doves, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi - 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=9018\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lachlan Mackinnon, Doves, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lachlan Mackinnon, Doves (Faber, \u00a314.99). 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