{"id":809,"date":"2010-09-07T09:50:03","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T09:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=809"},"modified":"2012-03-31T13:02:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T13:02:43","slug":"ken-head-reviews-waiting-for-the-sky-to-fall-by-dan-wyke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ken-head-reviews-waiting-for-the-sky-to-fall-by-dan-wyke\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Head reviews ‘Waiting for the Sky to Fall’ by Dan Wyke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waiting for the Sky to Fall<\/span> by <\/span>Dan Wyke<\/a>, <\/span>Waterloo Press<\/a> ISBN:\u00a0 978-1-906742-18-8 Paperback:\u00a0 \u00a310.00<\/span> 87pp<\/span>

Although widely published and the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, this is Dan Wyke\u2019s first full-length collection and brings together seventy-two poems covering the period 1992 \u2013 2008.\u00a0 It\u2019s an intriguing selection, not least because it includes Rescued<\/span>, a poem which expresses Wyke\u2019s weariness with the labour of writing poetry, of finding the poem that\u2019s special, important, not already written:<\/span>

Tonight, at last, I\u2019m ready to admit<\/span>
I\u2019ve no more poems, it\u2019s time to quit.<\/span>
Too often I think about my age,<\/span>
and what I\u2019ve forfeited for an empty page.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0.<\/span>
I tear out the page, drop it in the bin:<\/span>
now, perhaps, life can begin.<\/span>

All of us who write poetry understand this state of mind, although we might not be honest or brave enough to admit it in our first collection.\u00a0 In Wyke\u2019s case, by contrast, this forthrightness runs throughout.\u00a0 His view of his subjects is direct, even, at times, cold-eyed.\u00a0 In the opening poem, Polaroids<\/span>, for example, the austerity of nineteen-fifties England is trenchantly expressed through imagery of stains, fallout, pollution, the pallid halo \/ around the face of a freshly dead person<\/span>, while in Neighbours<\/span>, householders are seen as victims of trauma<\/span> living in a trance, a slow dance \/ of wheeling the bin \/ to the end of the drive … and when the birdsong stops, \/ locking their back doors<\/span>.\u00a0 Harsh?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 Elsewhere though, writing in a similarly sombre tone about death and loss \u2013 the collection contains a number of such poems \u2013 the effect is very different.\u00a0 In Last Visit, for example, Dust, Naked, Potatoes, Scattering Ashes<\/span> and (below) The Last Man<\/span>:<\/span>

My father is uncomfortable with me sitting<\/span>
so close to him on the sofa.<\/span>
He makes a noise with his mouth<\/span>
as though trying to detect a taste;<\/span>
breathes out heavily through his nose;<\/span>
crosses and uncrosses restless feet. <\/span>
The film on the box is Scott of the Antarctic.<\/span>
We know already how it ends.<\/span>
You stupid old sod, I want to say,<\/span>
thinking ahead to our final scene<\/span>
when lying in a hospital bed, breathing faintly,<\/span>
he complains that he is feeling cold<\/span>
and there is only this flame of affection <\/span>
in the pit of my stomach to warm him. <\/span>

The narrative thread running through this collection takes in Wyke\u2019s meditations on what his life has been and what he is trying to become, on childhood and school, family life, bereavement, loss, leaving home, the journey towards and into adulthood.\u00a0 Even time spent in Italy isn\u2019t spared … I want to be a playwright. \/ I haven\u2019t written any poems yet. \/ I don\u2019t think I have anything to write about … There are no words for how I feel. \/ … And I still keep trying to find them<\/span>.\u00a0 (Verona<\/span>) …\u00a0 the\u00a0 unswerving eye records what it sees:\u00a0 A swordfish on the quayside, \/ severed head stood jaw-up; <\/span>(Benvenuto \u00e0 Bari<\/span>);\u00a0 pale pink \/ toilet paper \/ shit-smeared \/ rich \/ and noxious (Italian Pastoral);\u00a0 Patches of plaster, \/ fallen away like scabs, \/ reveal older pictures \/ behind them: \/ a leg nailed to a cros<\/span>s … (San Zeno, Verona<\/span>). \u00a0<\/span>

Waiting for the Sky to Fall<\/span> is serious work.\u00a0 Neither merely entertaining nor clever, it records a poet dealing with his life, working to experience it more fully, discover the direction in which he should travel:<\/span>

Easter in Umbria.\u00a0 Divine light.\u00a0 Old masters\u2019 landscape.<\/span>
It has taken me almost twenty years to write this line \u2013 <\/span>
all that time working up a lyrical sweat, … \/ instead of speaking for myself, letting things be.<\/span> (Letting Things Be<\/span>)<\/span>

\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0…..Reviewed by Ken Head \u00a92010
\n<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waiting for the Sky to Fall by Dan Wyke, Waterloo Press ISBN:\u00a0 978-1-906742-18-8 Paperback:\u00a0 \u00a310.00 87ppAlthough widely published and the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, this is Dan Wyke\u2019s first full-length collection and brings together seventy-two poems covering the period 1992 \u2013 2008.\u00a0 It\u2019s an intriguing selection, not least because it includes Rescued, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1893,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions\/1893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}