Purchase: The Sinking Road

“Paul Batchelor comes with an enviable array of powers,” claims Sean O’Brien on the back cover of this volume of poetry, but there are no indicators in this collection of the poet having any superheroic qualities. Instead, we are treated to a collection of poems containing such variance that they build together the sum of thoughts and feelings to create, in one volume, the embodiment of being human, a single unit, solitary, observant and unconnected to its surroundings except through the fabric of the senses.

It is not emotion that feeds us through this collection, though emotion is certainly present. Rather, it is the language that carries us along and examines the puzzled reaction and attempt to rationalise events. His translations of some of the poems in Ovid’s ‘Tristia’ – written whilst in exile from Rome – prove the timeless quality of being apart, stuck in a place where understanding is not the same as being able to communicate:

Leander would have found apt use
for such a frozen waste: he would have walked
the Hellespont’s vault of glass, but those old
tales are not told here.
- Tristia

Similarly, Batchelor’s reworking of some of the works from the 9th century Irish saga, ‘Suibne Changed’ – a work some might know best from Seamus Heaney’s translation, Sweeny Astray – is also playing with the idea of disconnection, of being part of and yet apart from. In ‘Suibne in the Trees’ we read the anguish of having the ability to give orders with the knowledge that there is no right to do so,

Hateful to me 
as an evil word: 
a rootless tree 
holding sway in the wood.
- Suibne in the Trees

In reading Batchelor’s own work – the argument as to how much a translator is an artist in his own right is one for a different page – we are shown the true nature of his character. ‘Secret Papers’ is but one of a number of simply expressed poems that contain sharply defined images without the need for lengthy pondering. This poem plays with the philosophical question as to whether a falling tree makes a sound when no one is present to hear it, except in this case the tree in question has been hit by lightning. In the following pair of stanzas is, perhaps, the most beautiful image in the whole collection,

Or might a tree 
slip from its bark
quietly
as a girl steps from her clothes
- Secret Papers

And yet once again we finish with the over-riding conundrum,

Everything conspired. 
A singling-out occurred.
- Secret Papers

These two lines sum up the collection, the confusion as to why things happen to some people and not to others.

The sequence entitled ‘The Anatomy Lesson’ contains a beautiful, wrenching simplicity that goes the full circle and surprises with its depth and ability to linger in the mind. The poet is a puppet to the woman who is now gone to him, lingering close to her shadow – confessions of one who cannot let go, and will not apologise for it.

…you’ll never know
how glad I am I pocketed the  key. Shall I steal
inside again to see you drying colours; touch
those skins peeled from the air?
- The Anatomy Lesson

Now let us turn to the physical construction of the collection. On the whole Bloodaxe have done a good job; the poems are neatly laid out, not huddled too close to the spine, the typeface is crisp and though not beautiful to look at does lend itself to ease of reading. However, there are a few pages in the back of the collection entitled Notes & Dedications that provide constant irritation and actually succeed in stopping the reader from finding a pace at which to fully enjoy the experience of the whole collection. I found myself constantly thumbing back and forwards - a process that I finally had enough of and pencilled in the notes at the bottom of their respective poems before starting again, and should you buy this collection you would enjoy it ten times more if you follow this advice. Worse still, some of the notes are misnumbered, an editing mistake that should have been picked up on and rectified in the earlier stages of production. This is worrying, as Batchelor is being touted as one of the best up-and-coming poets, and if Bloodaxe are not paying due care and attention to the editing process then it suggests that less lauded young poets will get even less time spent on their collections.

This collection is well worth the eight pounds-minus-fivepence, and will not disappoint in repeated readings.

Bloodaxe Books, 64PP.,  £7.95,
978-1-85224-807-9