The privileged often espouse a view that poverty of aspiration and achievement (whatever that means) can be improved through education and temperance. They hold a belief that a desire for self-improvement is an inherent quality in man, perhaps because of their blinkered experiences. The life Mick Guffan writes of in his caustic yet remarkable poetry makes no mention of such capital ambition. It’s not for me to say if the man actively looked to improve his lot and lacked luck or opportunity, but the snippets he shares here of day to day existence are shadowed by the elemental – violence, drugs, unsatisfactory sex – endured when the effort required to effect change feels pointless to the narrator. There is little mention of pleasure other than through temporary release.
For those who regard poetry as pretentious, this collection offers an antithesis. Its raw honesty grates against any supposed rules on taste or censure. It includes references to and casual acceptance of such realities as: lice, semen, the sharing of menses. These are dealt with factually, without recoil, cutting to the quick. The poems offer an evocative rendering of a man as he sees himself – flawed and flayed by life. He is in want, and often this is not pretty.
There are injections of humour, as in ‘A Visit to the Museum’.
Browsing the bottom shelf
three specimen jars in a row.
Antiquated floating pricks as pathologist reference-
near an exposed, dangling double socket.
A sign below them all saying:
“Faulty, do not use.”
There are insights that offer a window into the sharp mind of a man whose behaviour and outward appearance may have led some to dismiss him with misplaced condescension.
(Only the righteous
shall be saved)
Ah yes, all in good time.
There are
so many
different
people to be.
‘Progress’ mocks
them clever
poems
with
words that jump
about
poems that
tick / some / boxes
merit an Arse Council handout
What comes across is an impression that the narrator chooses his own path within the confines of the hand dealt him. There is no expectation of sympathy. He accepts responsibility for what he is.
The poems, for all their grimy imagery, somehow transcend. They take a scalpel to preconceptions of someone who is at times ground down, who is so much more than first impressions. If the reader is discomfited by what is being shared perhaps the onus lies within. Reality bites and Guffan chews over this with uncompromising skill.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Tangerine Press.
neverimitate 