HIP POETRY REVIEW: A Postcard from the Abyss
By Martin Appleby & Kris Garratt
back room poetry, £5
REVIEW BY PETE DONOHUE
Hastings underground poet and DIY publisher Martin Appleby has featured several times in HIP Literature over the years. Most well-known for single-handedly producing PaperAndInk Zine – which incidentally celebrates a decade of punk publishing this month with a special Best of the First Ten Years issue – Martin is also a touring performance poet and regular contributor to litzines both in the UK and US. He also has a few chapbooks under his studded belt.
This latest is a collaboration with Kris Garratt, a name previously unknown to me, on the new supercharged chapbook publisher, back room poetry, created and run by someone called Darren from a location yet to be divulged. Styling itself ‘Small Time Low Scale Do It Yo’self Poetry Publishing’, brp started last September with a 2-week subs call on Twitter. After receiving 29 submissions, Darren decided to issue 13 chapbooks by June of this year, with badges and stickers to go with. Each is a limited edition of 50, back-room-printed on recycled paper and card, and hand-stamped with the publication date. A couple of the poets featured in the series are familiar names to me on the underground poetry scene but, refreshingly, most are new names to the genre.
In this chapbook each poet has six poems. Although not clearly differentiated, the usual convention in colab chapbooks is that the first writer listed on the cover runs up to the staples on the centre pages, and the second occupies the pages thereafter. Besides, I recognised aspects of style and subjects in Appleby’s work that confirmed this.
The first thing I notice about Appleby’s new poems is that they have a maturity and sophistication that often comes to writers as they grow more experienced. These lines strike me as less angry and more compassionate than the poet’s previous works, yet without losing any of their punk sensibility edge and anti-establishment/anti-capitalism views. There is a ‘live in the moment’ theme running through many along with a celebration of individualism:
‘…owning your own ideas
being your own boss
no gatekeepers
no middlemen
no red tape
no gods
no masters…’
(‘D.I.Y. OR DIE’)
Standout poems for me are ‘LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON’, a social commentary piece on living with abuse and domestic violence within the neighbourhood, and the collection title poem ‘A POSTCARD FROM THE ABYSS’ in which Appleby declares himself:
‘A citizen of nowhere
with a degree from
the University of Bullshit
my black flag planted firmly
up the arse of patriotism…’
Garratt’s poems, by contrast, are more introspective and self-pitying, which, although moving, do not carry the same momentum as Appleby’s. Each one is untitled so we don’t know where we’re going until we get well into the lines. The influence of Bukowski is clear in all these works but no new poet ever pulls off what the great Meat School maestro was able to, and I would prefer to have read a more original voice. In one poem Garratt announces ‘I turned 30 the other week’ and in another ‘The truth is I don’t know myself’. The main theme I picked up on was one of self-defeatism when I would like to have seen a hint of hope somewhere. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the read and look forward to where Garratt, and back room poetry, go from here.
www.backroompoetry.co.uk
@paperandinkzine
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