Modern Love Max Wallis
Review by Rachel McGladdery
I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of this pamphlet before it was officially published. It is all credit to Max, that I desperately still wanted a copy when it came out. It’s also credit to him that I phoned members of my family to read out snippets to them, that they oohed and ahhed and in one instance, cried at the appropriate places and shook their heads soundlessly when I explained how old Max was. I was going to stay well away from the age card. I’m sure he is fed up of people bringing it up, this is not simply remarkable poetry for a young man, it’s simply remarkable poetry.
I’m not a reviewer by nature, I do not have the scholarly vocabulary available and I read with my emotions rather than my head. I have this reaction to almost every art form, enjoying catharsis in art. I’m not good at critique. I have likened reading this pamphlet to being in a deep, hot scented bath, certainly, removing myself and attempting to write about it has felt like getting out again and drying myself on a mean, too small, slightly damp towel. It’s a luxurious read, I experienced tastes, textures and feelings I have never in my own life actually done and the writing is so fragrant, real and magical that I can’t do it justice in a review. It’s visceral and timeless. Though set firmly in the modern age, pages peppered with motifs from this age of social networking and text messaging, anchored beautifully in time by ‘Hiroshima Vow Towers’, I can’t help but think that if these references were all removed, the book could have been written at any time since the early 20th Century. The allusions to linens, alcohol, hot chocolate and cooking are classical. This is a love story.
I have tried to put my finger on what ineffable quality the pamphlet has, that made me remain so in love with the poems contained. Obviously the subject of love is so universal that it’s always going to be an attractive read for anyone. What blew me away was the fact that it is so Universal, there are no clichés here, no claggy romanticisms, nothing flowery. It is a raw and honest examination of a love affair. It crosses boundaries of age, gender, sexuality as if they just weren’t there. Maybe that’s why I consider this publication to be so important. I could see this used to celebrate diversity and challenge stereotypes, I can see older people reading it with just the same, jaw aching recognition. There is more being observed in this book than love though, it deals with humanity in a clear unswerving light, no punches are pulled when it comes to admitting infidelity, the ability to hurt another person is seen with an un-fogged eye.
It’s the imagery and original use of language that pulls this together so beautifully, Max Wallis challenges us to read subtly between the lines but he does it tenderly, what happens to the reader is more than a plangent tug at the emotions, this is no cheap sentimentality, it is a synaesthetic journey. Reading it is a sensual experience, I could see the words on the page, I could hear the poetry’s music in my head while I read but the true magic lies in the fact that I smelt, tasted keenly, felt every detail of the milieu. The magic lies in the words’ abilities to conjure experiences other than those described, a strange alchemy that produces something more than a cerebral response.
I want to wax about my totally favourite piece in the book, sometimes you read a poem and a line sticks forever, this pamphlet contains a few of these for me, notably from ‘Thinking Infinity’:
’…every sky I’m under is over you too…’ and from ‘When a Thief Kisses you count your teeth’ the sparse, technical spartan language conjures a medical feel, something bare, organic and magical. Especially the line: ‘Crack open my ribs, suck the breath/ from my lungs. Use my tendons as threads, my bones/ as knitting needles. Gouge my eyes and add them to the necklace you wear…’
I feel like a wine buff rather than a poet or reviewer when describing this pamphlet, words fail me. I am overwhelmed with the bouquet, the taste and the images that creep into my mind on reading the poems over. They make me slightly giddy. Read it, borrow it, buy it. Hell, buy a few copies and leave them out for every member of your family or social circle to happen upon. I think reading Modern Love would soften the crust on old aunties, plane the cynical edge of that brittle cousin and you could observe them all nodding soundlessly, swallowing a few tears and then look up from the book with slightly kinder eyes.
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Max Wallis is currently completing an MA at the University of Manchester where he is working on yet more poetry and his debut novel. His first poetry collection Modern Love is published by flipped eye. Max has performed at Kendal Calling Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Word Soup, and entered the Latitude Slam where he was placed third.
Max runs www.somethingeveryday.co.uk which brings award-winning authors, poets and artists together to challenge their craft through a daily discipline. He also models.
You can find him on twitter (@boommaxboom), Facebook or with Boss and on Amazon. He blogs at http://maxwallismaxwallis.tumblr.com.
Rachel McGladdery is a Garstang poet and Poetry Slam winner: winning the Write Out Loud NXNW Slam and is the first winner of the Liverpool Lennon International Poetry competition. 
She has recently had a guest slot on Max Wallis’s Somethingeveryday blog, and has has her poetry published online and in the Word Soup Year One book.
http://www.writeoutloud.net/poets/rachelmcgladdery / http://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=17273
As a crusty old grandpa, I enjoyed that review. Thank you.