Mr and Mrs Andrews Reframed by Lesley Burt (Templar)

An anecdotal style in this series of short poems and prose vignettes brings the three main characters to something resembling life. The tone is both stately and colloquial. Gainsborough is called Thomas, Mr and Mrs Andrews are referred to throughout as Mr A and Mrs A. It’s only in the penultimate poem that we learn Mrs Andrews’ name is Frances. The reader is invited to ‘Picture this’ as Mrs A, with echoes of Alice through the Looking Glass, ‘peers out of the portrait’, breathes on the glass and steps through to the ‘outside’. Her husband and the artist presumably follow her. For once she is taking the lead. 

Incidents and anecdotes occur in an intriguing mixture of countries and chronology. Mr A checks his Twitter feed and comments ‘I see we have taken Pondicherry from the French.’ Throughout, the background is colonial, wealth and status are based on property, exploitation of ‘slaves’ and ‘riff-raff’ is taken for granted. The cover design reveals a trespasser lying dead in a pool of blood. Mr and Mrs Andrews, the dog, the oak tree, the landscape of ownership, are shown as they are in the portrait. Mr A is holding his fowling piece and the caption reads ‘There was no right to roam in Gainsborough’s Day’. The reader is left to draw their own conclusions.

The characters are depicted skillfully. Mr A, true to his nature, is holding a gun in many of the poems. Verbs that describe his actions are ‘grunts’, ‘frowns’, ‘yawns’, ‘snores’. He is content to pat the dog, blast pigeons, wing pheasants, take satisfaction in his estates. He returns to his frame unchanged.

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Mrs A ‘sighs’ and ‘whitters’, is careful to cross her ankles and clench her knees under voluminous skirts. As in the portrait, she comes over as passive and on display. She does at least have dreams of what might have been. At the end of the sequence, she returns to her canvas with the realisation that ‘men have framed my life’.

It is the character of Thomas Gainsborough, as Lesley Burt conveys him in Mr and Mrs Andrews Reframed, that interests me most. Before she climbs out of the portrait, Mrs A ‘unclenches her knees’. I feel there is a sense of ‘the gaze’ in these poems, the way that someone or something being gazed at becomes an object, there is a hint of voyeurism. ‘In the Library’ shows a dubious side to Thomas as he calls to Mr A ‘Over here! Look at the librarian! Bare arse and bubbies!’ He licks his pencil but the implication is that he is mentally licking his lips. He goes on to paint a still-life portrait which includes a nude woman. 

So what exactly is reframed in this fascinating pamphlet? A layer below the surface appearance? An emphasis on predation? In Gainsborough’s portrait Mrs Andrews’ lap and the front panel of her skirt are left unpainted. There are several theories as to the reason. In the very last line ‘Mr A drops a pheasant in her lap.’ Maybe Gainsborough didn’t show this because the red bloodstains would have been too vivid a contrast with the lady’s blue silk gown. Lesley Burt leaves the reader to untangle many tantalising threads.

Mandy Pannett 12^th July 2023

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