Tim Atkins' Petrarch from Book Thug's New British Poets Series is edited by Stephen Collis and Amy De'Ath. If the quality of this read is any indication of what is to follow we are all in for a big treat. This chapbook pops and spits and crackles in your hands while you are trying to read it. If this is what they are doing in Britain then I want to see more of it.
253
to J.S.with L.
In England or Hobbiton & in denial of my age
now that summer has been sold off
Without dividend from whatever privatized public service
deigns to lease my leg to the national grid & then charge
for it
After 300 years of being Japanese
In the process of giving up wishing for the rewards
of a poetry written towards a ship made of bricks
Or of 'literal' fulfilment having been closer than
most hairdressers to both
In a taxi back from a fortnight's canapes & quality time
with chinchillas at a conference on Karl Marx
Let me state although it is late –
To be a poet is to hitch-hike 5000 miles in a kayak in order
to see
A jar in Tennessee Rioting Inna me khaki suit-an-t'ing
In Godalming
Selling out is the new
keeping it real Unhappy for 3/4 of a haircut
We always fall into the
Utopian Camp Poets
If you want to fix the world go to Wall St.
...
Tim Atkins is quite unlike anyone else I've encountered, the mix of styles, his range, his humour –
these poems, ostensibly a translation of Petrarch, simply soar like somewhat unorganized fireworks. Each explosion more illuminating than the last.
160
Her white breasts pressed against a green tree-trunk
The orange of oranges as only oranges can
summon
One cat kissing another cat on a card in a card shop
in Clapham
Different from a blue tongue in the mouth or the hand
Of a Chinese doctor trembling just a little at the front of
the concept of reciprocity
Her yellow body as white as white paper really white
Two boxers standing silent in a ring perhaps hugging
Jack & Art What Spunk!
Light on wrought-iron in the dome of the mind of the
Dadaist Restauranteur
Whoever wishes to love nobly when she presses her green
something against a white what – friends –
There
Must
Always
Be
Doubt
...
Book Thug, the most adventurous small press in the country at the moment, is producing this new series, New British Poets, in runs of 100. Tim Atkin's Petrarch would be better served as a Gideon Bible type promotion, you know, one in every hotel room, maybe a run of 100,000. This isn't about religion, not remotely, but instead a new kick start to reason. "O, brave new world that such people in't!" This book in every hotel room would put things in a new perspective.
280
Sitting upright in front of a lie detector
& failing test after test
A male nurse called Pam says
Wake up Mr Atkins – it's time for your Phil Spector
There is the pot test and the one involving fire and domestic
dwellings
In order to discover any new planet
In the prose poem entitled "The Shrimp Exaggerated"
I am that tulip
In London SW19
The camera records everything but love
& on the other hand
Again – love –
If you can get it from my kung-fu grip
Only then you can have it
...
Atkins isn't really concerned about our fractured history or kaleidoscope future, he's riffing fantastic, about the present in poem after poem. I would be a liar if I said I got it all, some of it flies past me so fast I don't see it, but these poems resonate with me and call me back for more. Atkins makes me laugh.
312
No lovely small noisy birds with dark shiny feathers that
roam through empty pieces of clothing for a woman or
girl that hangs from the waist
No well-oiled water creature with a shell upon a tranquil
person who does sculpture
No place where old or injured horses are taken to be killed
and their flesh sold in low comfortable chairs with
supports for the arms through the part of a cheque ticket
etc which can be detached and kept as a record
No swift and frisky tall thin people in charming women
especially the women of a family or community
considered together
No recent tiny piece of atomic matter of long-awaited thin
sticks covered with a substance that burns slowly and
produces a sweet smell
No small piece of material sewn into a garment of a small
insect living on the bodies of people or animals in lofty
ornate state of being nearly unconscious or not fully
aware of what is happening
Nor there amid clear small young onions and red hats with
a flat top and tassel but no brim of green
Sweet device or system for finding objects under water of
the production of milk by women or female animals
virtuous and lovely
Nor other part of the human leg between the knee & the
hip can ever touch my number of things or mass of
material lying in an untidy pile
She buried it so deep with her own instrument for detecting
earthquakes
Who was along for my extreme views in politics or religion
a person employed at a beach or pool to rescue people
and a girl who is playful or cunning and does not show
the proper respect
So long and heavy is the pain of animals kept on a farm for
use or profit
That I call for the books giving information to investigate
and report on complaints made by citizens against public
authorities I should never have seen
...
We can't all be the sharpest tack or quickest wit which is exactly why we need voices like Tim Atkins to lubricate the wheels of the roller coaster. Reason isn't the reason for reading these exciting poems. It's the ride, an amusement park ride for the noggin.
366
The boys are singing to drive away the noxious birds
Before women it is useful to practice on statues
& now I am here to tell you all that I have discovered
That living is one of the best things – there where I ripped it
that her eyes couldn't have been more beautiful – I just
thought they were
Driving my utopian car over the dystopian roads
I go over and look at myself
& look surprised
Because living is one of the best things I go over
I stand there listening to the sunshine burning the grass
My horn a crumpled dream
Earthling! Comrades! Adios!
Work out your salvation with diligence
As if all things were still possible
...
If I didn't know that he were dead I would have thought Kurt Vonnegut might have had a hand in melding some of these poems. Tim Atkins Petrarch makes me anxiously excited to read more in Book Thug's New British Poet Series, and it certainly makes me want to read more of Atkins. In his world, it all seems possible.
Tim Atkins talks about poetry in England.
www.bookthug.ca
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