Andrew Martin’s new collection is from the pen of a modern lyricist who tips his cap to John Clare and Edward Thomas while having a thoroughly contemporary take on things. While ostensibly about the natural world his work is imbued with deep feeling and a sensitivity which verges on the vulnerable. His use of imagery has a minimalist precision and combines an aesthetic beauty with an approach to the world which contrasts the internal with the external in a manner that is fresh and approachable. The reader is constantly surprised and challenged into seeing the world anew and perhaps into rethinking preconceived positions. Martin also designed the cover art and book layout and he has a real flair for typography.
walking the worn edge
I’ve unseen things
you believed in
doves on fire
wings shredding
in the belly of Betelgeuse
I’ve heard waves
shadow-shimmer in daylight
far from the desire paths
all those memories
will be found again
out of time
rain that remembers
the crying
drenched in dawn
There are hints here towards the lyrical passages in the film Bladerunner, a submerged S/F element which appears elsewhere in his work, while the phrase ‘desire paths’ itself refers back to the prefacing (untitled) poem which views the artistic aim as a combination of mini-Homeric exploration fused with a sense of evolutionary mission. This is heart meets head in an almost quivering tension which an attentive reader can feel wonderfully immersed in.
From ‘there is a hole in a tree’ we get the following:
if I curl inside
would this tree
take this man
tired of being a man
turn me to the soft stone
of old sunlight
let the dark lightning
of new antlers
take root into sky
This is writing which is imbued with longing and which gives a fresh take on the pantheistic tradition while combining dramatic imagery with an underlying sense of melancholy. From what I understand these poems came about as a result of a particular set of walks which engendered the thoughts and feelings herein. There is an overall immersion in the environment which creates a mood but not at the expense of thought and a certain ‘distancing’ which I think relates to the precision and unusual aspects of the imagery.
sometimes the world is so gentle
sunset sits upon park benches
reveals old rivers
ribboning through the grain
shadows pool in a paw print
a cat whispers the piano
pads across its keys
breeze lifts the leaves a little
fingers become feathers
holding hands
a form of flight
skim long grass
filaments lit low
shadows stretch towards me
sparrows shiver cowbells
in their chests
church bells
touched by the late light
train lines sing
the miles between us
This is a love song to the world as well as, perhaps, to an individual. I’m not always persuaded by ‘soft lyricism’ these days and it’s hard to achieve in a modern context but these poems are both intoxicating and immersive, even where, as there is on occasion, a suggestion of a darker side. From ‘sea glass’ we get: ‘each step / blunts our blades / shatters our rage / the little lashes / that scar us smooth.’ Again we get an immersion in the environment, almost a shape-shift between the human and the environment, a tension between calm and beauty and something more dangerous and hurtful to the vulnerable. These poems work on you upon re-reading and their world is one which it’s hard to ignore. Martin’s debut collection, Shoals of Starlings (Waterhare Press), is a masterpiece in my view and one of the best poetry books to have come from the Plymouth scene in a long time.
Steve Spence 5th January 2022
Tears in the Fence 