Grub, by Martin Mooney

In a minute I'll give you some background on this book -- who wrote it, why I was worried, etc. -- but right now I want to show you what happened at the very first poem, "Launching the whaler Juan Peron."

I was confused. Confounded. From the first line:

When all that was solid melted into air

What does that mean? How do solids melt into air? Don't they melt into liquid? And all that was solid? The whole bleeding universe? Don't think the second line helped me:

they were sixty feet above the frost

Who's they? The people on the Juan Peron or the people on the dock who are seeing it off? After reading the poem three times, I can answer all these questions. These lines are actually a glimpse of the end of the poem. And he purposely has not given us enough information to understand what is going on. It's a good idea, one you often see in movies as well as literature: a teasing glimpse. But he didn't pull it off, at least not with me.

Because of the outrageousness of the first line, I thought it meant fog, perhaps. I figured it was some overwrought way of talking about the weather. Well, no. He's referring to something far more dramatic and specific. But as I said, I had no way of knowing that.

So I was unable to enjoy that first stanza, mainly because I thought I was supposed to understand it. This is an important distinction. If I am confident that I haven't gotten enough information to complete the story, then I can enjoy my glimpse just as it is. But if I'm expecting to know the story behind the images, then I am doomed to frustration. As a reader of poetry, you have to learn how to enjoy something without understanding it completely. Sometimes you will be watching events through a lace curtain, so enjoy the pulse of shadows, and the patterns on the lace.

If that's the case, then what was my problem? Why couldn't I just enjoy the ride? Because I had been steered wrong, that's why! It's a worldwide tragedy, it is (or at least, it is in New Jersey). Many poets have taken the principle of enjoying the glimpse as carte blanche to write whatever comes to mind (or worse). They feel no obligation for clarity or carefulness.

Woe to them, I say, for they have it backwards. A poet must have the most control of all writers, just as a safari guide must be more careful than a suburban postman. The poet must be aware of which words will be unclear, how unclear they are, how much clearer they will get by the end of the poem. If a phrase is ambiguous, he must be aware of the two or more possible meanings the reader will find, and which will seem more likely than others. After all, the reader has agreed to trust the writer enough to venture into this darkness. The writer, in turn, must be worthy of that trust.

Back to the Juan Peron. A different title and I might have enjoyed the first stanza right away. It would have remained abstract and pretty. But because I was expecting to fit the images to the title, and because they almost did, I got confused.

You read the first stanza now, in blessed innocence. It's not about launching a boat, so get that right out of your minds. Remember what I said. Stop yourself from trying to figure it out:

When all that was solid melted into air
they were sixty feet above the frost
sparkling on the quay and on the water--
strung in the winter evening
like a new constellation.
Pure defiance buoyed them up;
to the insistent wheedling of gravity
their one reply was No Surrender.
Split seconds passed like hours
as the wind froze their faces
in the shapes of confusion
and their minds went backwards and forwards
unhurriedly seeking an explanation
for this casting-off of traces.

Now I'll give away the ending. It turns out these are workers who were on a gangway when it collapsed. Some fell to their deaths, some survived. Go back and read it again, knowing who these people are, knowing that the solid that melted away was the very floor they were standing on, knowing that the sixty feet was how far they had to fall. Do you see how vivid this stanza is now, how gripping? But if I'd only read the poem once I never would have made it back here.

Stanza two goes back in time and finally we get to the title. An Irish girl is a last minute replacement for Evita and the ship gets sent on its way. From then on, from stanza to stanza, we get a straightforward narrative description of this ship's life, right up to the moment of the first stanza, completing the circle. But because of the break between the first two stanzas, I wasn't expecting the rest to flow logically one from the other, and so they confused me as well.

Just imagine, something as simple as a title change could have opened this poem up to me right away. As it is, I go back to it now after three readings and it is just... magnificent. Read this passage from the third stanza, where the poet gives his own "christening" to the whaler ship:

Born in Belfast,
part marvel of engineering
part slaughterhouse,
built to carry 24,000 tons of oil
from the bodies hauled up
bloody and howling into her dark interior
like a film of birth run backwards--
may God and Ulster bless her
and all who sail in her.

With his figurative "born" he literally brings the ship to life for us. We are left to make our own conclusions about these disparate locales (Belfast and Argentina) being connected by this ship. All we could agree on is that they are very distant, very different. This is our introduction to a series of juxtapositions, which are so important to poetry because they create a sort of mental short-circuit by putting things together that don't belong together.

Technical and summarizing language is juxtaposed with melodramatically horrific images: "marvel of engineering" with "slaughterhouse" and "24,000 tons of oil" with "bodies hauled up bloody and howling." Together, they create a more profound statement than they could separately. We see the cruel specificity that hides behind an executive overview. But that's not all. We have "God" juxtaposed with "Ulster." Because of what came before, Ulster is implied to be a dark shadow of God. Finally, the "all who sail in her" includes both the sailors and the whales. We've been set up to make this conclusion by the lines before. This is what I mean by a poet being in control! (Did you notice that I never even mentioned the most striking line, the seventh? I'll let you enjoy it for yourself.)

What can I tell you about Martin Mooney, the man who wrote these poems? Well, only what I read of him in his book. That's right, ladies and gents. I share with you the outsider's perspective, the glimpse from far away. After all, he's in Ireland and I'm not. I was a bit concerned about that, and I'm quite sure I'm missing things because of it: references, dialect. Something I see as obscure or even a brilliant bit of Surrealism might just be a local figure of speech. Much of "Penny Lane" can be explained this way. "Four of fish and finger pies" actually means something in Paul's damp corner of the world, apparently.

I envy Baron Wormser, the foreworder of this book. He acts like he knows Martin personally, and all his characters as well, "young people from Belfast adrift in amoral London." I feel like I'm looking at aliens through a foot of frosted glass. At least, until I run into a moment of sublime clarity.

For instance, his poem "Odalisque." The title is a reference I know: the tradition in European painting of depicting Turkish harem girls for thrills. Here's the poem in full, but for now forget what I said about the title:

A punter's leafing through the magazines.
Sinead's aware that he's convinced
she's watching him. Expectant, timorous,
his eyes flick towards her, then away,
like a fly's orbit round a light bulb.
She knows by now he'll spend the afternoon
waiting for the moment he can lock a door
on the pair of them, dressing her
in the wild outfits of his imagination:
the strapped and buckled plastic, studs
and gas masks, thongs and hoods.
She'd like to hurt him and he wants her to.

Clear enough without the title, isn't it? But knowing the title won't confuse you. It only enriches the layers of meaning. After all, the protagonist is "aware that he's convinced she's watching him." This is the sort of watching-you-watching-me stuff that art historians and theorists love to talk about. Martin complicates it with thought processes: awareness and conviction. In other words, we move to the I-know-that-you-know motif, which is a very similar motif, yes?

It's the circle of love that we're talking about here. Or maybe love is the wrong word. But it's how one person relates to another, a circle created by two people, one expecting things of the other, the other expecting that one is expecting. Everything in this poem is occurring in the mind. The images are imagined and/or waited for. Nothing is really happening except glimpses between a man and a woman.

The only exception, the only thing that is not happening in the minds of the actors, is also the only poetic fancy of the piece, a simile: "like a fly's orbit around a light bulb." This one lonely device is well-suited to do all the work here. It flickers over all the proceedings with its subtle commentary, something about the pointlessness of going around in circles, or the bold uselessness of moving towards the light, or a working class version of a moth to the flame.

Look here, you tired scanners of improbable obscurity, and find hope! I just showed you a poem clear on its surface that still buzzes with meaning the more you read it. And maybe Martin doesn't hit the spot every single time, or maybe he does if you happen to be from Ireland, but he hits enough of a spot for just about anyone to enjoy his book. So buy it already!

I just noticed that I've been using the poet's first name. My apologies. I was just so envious of that Wormser guy. Anyway, Mr. Mooney will thank me for this uninvited intimacy when the hordes hit the shopping malls screaming his name.