I am writing to question Rob Withers' review in Envoi 134 of Brian Fewster's publication Poor Tom's Revenge.
The cover first, which Rob Withers describes as 'unappealing' and 'a collage of newspaper scraps' and goes on to say: 'That should have been enough to ensure that only his kind of reader would peer inside Poor Tom's Revenge.' I don't know what 'his kind of reader' means, though since I have read and appreciated Brian Fewster's poems (here and elsewhere) I assume I am one of those. What Withers means, though, baffles me.
I have read Poor Tom's Revenge more than once and find the poems interesting and accomplished, many requiring that close attention a good critic would be prepared to give. Brian Fewster is a writer of great intelligence, and even those poems which seem immediate call to be re-read because of the unusual imagery and questioning thought. The cover, which Withers is so caustic about, I find both visually appealing and a pointer to (and reflection of) the poems. It is, as Rob Withers observes, a collage; but not simply of newspaper 'scraps.' If he had studied it more carefully he would have seen that a number of the 'scraps' are excerpts from the poems inside and very much complement the rest of the cuttings. The idea that the collage is 'deliberately tatty' is ridiculous. It has been assembled with a deliberate and planned intention, and Fewster must have spent a great deal of time arranging the pieces from various sources to arrive at a visual panorama of questions of our time over which ( as the 'scraps' suggest) we have little or no negotiating power. The cover is therefore a comment on the society in which we live – human and corporate attitudes, behaviour, matters of exploitation, greed, temptations, betrayals and disasters. For Withers to say that 'production values have no place in Brian Fewster's project' is unappreciative at the very least.
As to the poems quoted, referring to Stop-Frame Sequence, Rob Withers complains, 'Nothing in the poem makes any kind of point about the violent act.' This is not true, as a reading of the ending of the poem shows:
which is observed by the boy from his small Olympus,
Rob Withers says, making a general point about the collection, 'Protest, ironic critques of capital..................appear without evaluation.' But part of Fewster's technique is ( very cleverly and with a vibrancy of language) to enunciate rather than dictate, so that the final evaluation has to come from the reader, who is allowed to make his own judgements. The poet is laying bare the faults in our social inheritance without lecturing.
As Rob Withers points out in a later review, 'We all need harsh critics.' One should, however, expect the critic to be imaginative, fair, and back up any criticism (harsh or otherwise) with full argument and justifications if the reader is to have any respect for his opinions. I suggest this harsh critic re-reads Poor Tom's Revenge with more diligence, when he will find much that is original and highly-organised to admire. Another good examination of the cover would not be out of the way, either.
Many of the poems are lyrical in both structure and feeling. Brian Fewster writes often in iambics and where other less accomplished poets would end up with something 'trite and banal' , Fewster's intelligent combining of metre and highly expressive language is something to admire. It is this that drives the poem through a potentially disastrous tetrameter and pentameter that less skilful poets fall prey to.
Rob Withers does not even mention the clever, versatile and imaginative sequence of sonnets in the collection, 'The Seven Deadly Sins.' Why not? Perhaps he did not get that far.
At £3.00 this booklet of 36 pages is a bargain. The cover alone, in its interest value, is worth that price. You do, however, have to read what the newsprint says to appreciate what Brian Fewster is doing.
Huw Watkins
Rob Withers defends his review ("I don't have time to devote to pointless attacking of work in which I see no merit.")
............................... ......The radio is playing jazz,
If someone drops a block of concrete from a bridge on to a passing car on the motorway we do not have to be told about the violent nature of the act. What the poet does instead is to observe the sequence of events in a disengaged way, and this technique of distancing, of slowing the incident up in a stop-frame sequence accentuates the horror of the situation and the inability of the observer to do anything about the event, being compelled to watch the narrative unfold. This, surely, is 'the point' about the description of the violent act. It is the use of understatement, the coldly-logical appraisal, which activates the spectator's imagination and emphasises the horror. It is the violence of silence. It is surprising, when in his other reviews Rob Withers makes so much reference to filmic activity, that he cannot accept Fewster's approach.
the driver improvising a scat accompaniment
as his heart begins to beat with elated horror
at such a bodying forth of imagination
by actors of flesh and blood, steel and stone.
...the brisk impatient, "Come along then, dear."
How does this compare to:
I've known enough of love to know its lack.
Marooned in plush velour and polished chrome.
Lost in the heart of brightness. Far from home. ('Home')
And who is this, who sits beside the river
What does a reviewer say about the work this comes from? It is a work of spellbinding fluency, flavoured with the astringent satire for which its author is celebrated. I know which one is trite and banal. So much for some of our critics!
Day after day and gazes at the sky
With searching eyes and gazes at the water
And frowns and shakes his head with many a sigh?