Poem of the Week from Guardian London This weeks poem from Guardian London is “Look-out” by Ian House. Its from an unusual kind of commemorative anthology, The Arts of Peace, and simply and movingly encapsulates the editorial concept. I present this poem and the comment on it culled from Guardian in the hope and belief that my poet friends in India and Pakistan writing about the wars between these two twins in the past should (or should not) refer to ‘victory’ or ‘defeat’ of one over the other. Lets just paint a scene in words with as much of a visual appeal as possible and - then - wait and see. I always choose to follow this method. Thats why I like this poem. Look-out by Ian House. For now the citys at peace. The snipers rifle is upright between his knees, his hands are soothed by the barrel and hes posted in an armchair at a crossroads among dangling balconies, torn-off dresses, jagged whiskey bottles, sandbags, dolls and listens to vanished disco tunes. Coffee is a memory he tastes and smells. He knows, he knows, the cafes will re-fill with statesmen, poets, astronomers, good-time girls; there will be public worship, evening strolls, bookshops, bakeries, banana splits and table scraps that can be left for dogs. • Ian House published his second full collection, Nothings Lost earlier this year A Critical Comment Were all familiar, if only at second hand, with the unreal-seeming juxtapositions of war. The poem begins, as a news report might, with a bizarre but almost comic combination: a sniper, who appears to be, or perhaps ought to be, on Look out, is actually relaxing in an armchair at a crossroads. The tenuousness of possession and occupation is cunningly underlined. Detritus is scattered around; in fact, the armchair is part of it. The sniper himself hasnt laid down his arms, though the rifle ledged upright between his knees is a reassurance, a kind of phallic comforter. Is his dreamy calm justified by the situation? The odd boldness of his presence in such a public place might suggest hes traumatised or high – that somehow he has gone over the edge into his private memories of normality. The vanished disco tunes he listens to must be in his own head, like the memory of the taste and smell of coffee. How soon will his dream be shattered? The objects listed demonstrate the effects of large-scale destruction (dangling balconies) and the micro-wreckage of torn-off dresses,/ jagged whisky bottles … dolls. The torn-off dresses may or may not imply rape; either way, they signal the intrusive, intimate, bodily viciousness of war. The sandbags testify to an ineffective home front. Although a little short of a sonnet, Look-out effects a turn at line nine. Now the dislocated images of the present give way to a sensuous, orderly utopian future. Repetition heightens emotion for the soldier, whose view is always shared by the narrator: He knows, he knows … Perhaps his certainty is less than is claimed, but the need to assert it is intense. Theres nothing cynical in the vision, no sense that it might be betrayed (again?) by the statesmen in the peacetime coffee bars. The professions listed (statesmen, poets, astronomers, good-time girls) are timeless emblems of civilisation. They represent values this particular sniper has fought for with a hungry sense of their worth and confidence in their restoration. Again, the small- and large-scale objects are deliberately jumbled: bookshops, bakeries, banana splits … And the ultimate luxury is not just enough to eat, but a little more than enough, so that the table scraps can be given to the dogs. Its not only the freshness and naivete in the image of city life regained that create the poignancy, but the unspoken assumption that the end will turn out to have justified the means, and to be separable from it.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 13:35:17 +0000
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