Weighing the Air

(Sub-text: this is complex, high-tech stuff.)

- Reticulating splines

 

Peter Howard is part philosopher part technocrat. At its best his work manages an interesting and enlightening melding of the two registers. At its most jarring some of these pieces risk becoming gratuitous processions of recent inventions that do nothing to expose any issue of importance, or to impact on our minds further than the normal effects of novelty. There is always something jarring about seeing the current world represented. It is why, un-courageously, we often resort to truisms and vague methods of description that burden the reader with the task of providing flavouring. When, as in these poems, the “complex, high-tech stuff” that makes up our everyday lives appears there is the difficult problem of its simultaneous instant recognition, and the unfamiliarity of its setting within literature. In poems such as 'The Last Science Lecture' there is an attempt at de-mystification and poetical-correctness,

Electricity is a thin blue liquid, faintly luminous, concentrated in lightening, as anybody knows. Heat is a sticky jam, attracting wasps...

- The Last Science Lecture

The attempt is convincing. This is an authentic, childlike depiction and mythologisation of concepts that are perhaps difficult to explain through common sense.

However the sciences of 'electricity', 'heat', and 'gravity' are hardly the sharp edge of technological development. It is the works that concern themselves with the techno-magical world of computers and their languages which are the most intriguing, and unfortunately often the most disappointing. In 'The Holding' we have the anthropomorphation of a piece of computer storage space, opening with the avowal that “I am bit 5 of octet 2 of longword 4B7C56”. The language throughout shows a comprehensive understanding of parameters, registers, LEDs, video refresh, modem buffers, value truncation; “Sub-text: this is complex, high tech stuff.” However for this piece to be effective it must be comprehendable outside the small subset of society involved in the programming industry. Howard obviously has an understanding copious enough to make linking and analogy, via linguistic and social knowledge, to make the double meanings and puns work efficiently. In 'Reticulating splines' we have the scenery of “screen, keyboard” becoming the landscape of “fen tigers”, the “bleak land” and “wide sky” of East Anglia. Through the etymology of“reticulate” (net-making) and “spline” (strip of wood) we are transported from the cold, offputting world of algorithims, functions, eπi = -1. In 'Reticulating splines' this works, we are frustrated at a lack of understanding, and satisfied at being given a route to understanding. However in 'The Holding' this tactic is stretched perhaps too far, the animation of a subsection of a storage medium, and its comparison to individual humanity that is “truncated, thrown away” wears thin; there seems to be no natural reason for the analogy. Using the diction of a computer manual to highlight the loneliness of the modern work-place is interesting – the first time. In many of these poem the trivialities of office-life are represented in a manner that attempts to be simultaneously stultifying, amusing and knowing; however sometimes the deadening sense of boredom and lethargy is unmitigated by either humour or insight – this is perhaps a matter of taste. ‘Daffodils’ is one of the many that does succeed, indeed satirising the self-importance of experts in small and unessential fields of study, noting with feigned bile that;

“in 1996, only .26 hectares of 'King Alfred' / were being grown commercially... / It makes you want to spit.”

'The Arachnids of Lynn (KL5)' is aware of the issues around including esoteric knowledge in writing and the choice of how much to explain, and how much to leave to the reader,

Did I need to say that? Could I have left it as an unresolved reference for you to pick up and enjoy the discovery?

- The Arachnids of Lynn (KL5)

Despite these concerns the collection is of a high-standard and well worth a little work with the concepts and terminology. There is a range on show, and the most successful are those which achieve the aim promised in the title, of “Weighing the Air”, exposing how the simple expression of the delicate and subtle can act to dissolve or pulverize the sentiments involved. The initial works are of this sort, musing on the eccentricities of people you do not know and the fascination in internal and private lives in 'Strangers', looking at the under-acclaimed history of the parsnip in 'Pastinaceous' and generally the swift, momentary experiences, horror and laughters “without meaning or sense” that go towards constructing our everyday lives. Howard revels in the miniature tragedies and happinesses that are discovered through unusual methods of investigation, and are perhaps necessary, in a world with a distinct poverty of obvious emotion.

It is possible, if you catch enough unawares, squeeze it tightly, and then, before it has time to think, pop it on the scales and take a reading.

- Weighing the Air

ARROWHEAD PRESS, 90PP., £8.99
ISBN 978-1-904852-18-6