Ian Parks’ ‘The Landing Stage’ is a startlingly inventive collection which, as you’d expect from an anthology compiled over a number of years, is rich in its breadth of diverse topics and subject matters. Yet, there is a definite sense of theme and concept running throughout: pastoral images held up as a mirror to urban decay; nods to poetic forebears, notably Romantic period writers (to whom much of this work is indebted); and a few story-telling cuts which would easily sit alongside an album of Bob Dylan lyrics. At the same time, there is a remarkable sense of unity and consistency here.
Beautiful opener ‘Northern Lights’, rich in nostalgia and paradox, sets the scene, contemplating the world at large from the humble setting of a fondly remembered backyard, an idiosyncratic observation triggering vivid reminiscence. The effective linguistic counterpoints – ‘soft curtains parting to reveal the glow of pearl and amber’ sitting alongside ‘beer down to its frothy dregs’ – reflect the Simon Armitage-esque contrast at large here: that of the adult narrator voicing childhood recollection, an idea which could be seen as a springboard for the ensuing collection as a whole.
A similar device is used for ‘Prague’ where a modern day visitor tries to view the city in the context of its communist past, but finds it difficult to discern fact amongst the politics of memory and images popularised (one might argue, sensationalised) by media coverage. Lines like ‘I needed someone to translate, while I invented meanings of my own’ capture the dichotomy of the outsider trying to find the authentic identity of the foreign land, which Parks uses as a metaphor for the city itself – in turn, struggling to find its own identity, where even its inhabitants can be cast as outsiders in the wake of extensive cultural upheaval. The haunting ‘Red Sheets’ may come from a similar place and although the short stanzas and economic use of language may make the exact meaning brutally ambiguous, this only enhances its potent message.
The apparent link of social commentary is a key theme throughout the book, often explored through wisdom and experience, but illustrated with vulnerability and innocence: such as status divide in ‘The Making of the English Working Class’; the socially unifying effect of mass spectacle, an ‘Eclipse’ integrating people across generations, personal background and divide forgotten, irrelevant; a contemplation of, literally, crumbled power in ‘Constantine’ (the emperor’s statue is ‘broken’, has an ‘emptied mind’ and ‘no other god to worship but the sun’); and, similarly, architecture of personal and historical significance fighting against decay.
The sense of juxtaposition and contrast is perhaps most effective when Parks turns stereotype upon its head. Thus, ‘Noir’ doesn’t make its female protagonist the passive, innocent victim of its dark city setting. Rather, the city is in thrall to the girl, ‘who melts from the night, without a future or a past… But sure about her purpose’… Whilst ‘men in the vaulted lobby watch her move, put down their unread papers, place drinks back on the bar’ as though her characteristic presence has the power to stop time, the surrounding world shaped by her very being. Typically, Parks employs an adept use of imagery and language, which – together with his stream-of-consciousness verse style – withdraws from the more obvious meta-narratives that other writers might make the dominating feature, focusing instead on the nuts and bolts, the idiosyncratic. His world is one of intrinsic detail and fragile emotion, on a playing field of often cataclysmic proportions.
The stunning ‘Double Man’ is aptly placed as a centrepiece, acting as a culmination of ‘The Landing Stage’s overriding themes: mortality; travel (or life as a journey); our debt to history; an irretrievable past, and a respectful nod to the author’s poetic heroes. The dreamlike but melancholy tale is played out as a conversation with WH Auden’s ghost, focussing on two very different snapshots from the famous poet’s life: the outspoken man in his prime, ‘boyish in this drab, ill-fitting suit’, becoming wilder and more reflective at the end of his life, ‘the smell of death clinging to his clothes’. ‘The Double Man’ channels the essence of twentieth century ‘progress’ into an actual decline where forward-thinking curiosity is replaced by a more appealing, but watered down, version of history – ‘The prophet’s day is over now but all the questions of the past remain… Great country houses open their doors to Sunday morning visitors’ – in a country ravaged by Industrial Revolution, imperialism and war. The narrator relates an occasion where he travelled to Auden’s birthplace, York, only to be ‘disappointed by the meagre metal plaque’, the city itself unattainable, claimed by tourists who ‘cram ornamental bridges with their cars’ and romantic couples whose love seems doomed to become ‘bland indifference’. As in ‘Prague’, Parks presents us with a vision of inauthenticity, his writing an attempt to reclaim the past; re-establish the truth.
The idea of communicating with Auden’s ghost is a fitting metaphor for ‘The Landing Stage’ as a complete text, where Parks frequently summons art, literature and history to engage in an active dialogue with our own heritage, whilst still primarily addressing contemporary concerns; artefacts and figures of cultural significance held up as a yardstick to our own fragility. Sometimes, as in the case of ‘Spinoza Shapes a Lens’, art itself might just be responsible for killing its creators, highlighting our impermanence to very literal levels.
This is an intelligent and finely crafted work, of which it is difficult to find fault – although it could be argued that the sheer thematic variety occasionally detracts from cohesion. But perhaps ‘The Landing Stage’ as a whole can be viewed like the protagonist in ‘Noir’: wandering from place to place in an ever changing landscape, but always claiming these differing worlds as its own.
Ian Parks’ poetry has received numerous accolades and awards, including the Royal Literary Fund 2003, the Oppenheim Award 2001 and 2002 and the John Masefield Award 2001. Ian is consultant editor for Dream Catcher, serves on the judging panel for the TMA theatre awards, and reviews contemporary poetry for Poetry Quarterly Review. Ian was one of the Poetry Society New Poets in 1996. His collections include SHELL ISLAND, THE CAGE and LOVE POEMS 1979-2009. Poems have appeared in POETRY REVIEW, THE LIBERAL, THE LONDON MAGAZINE, POETRY (Chicago), THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, THE OBSERVER and STAND. He has taught creative writing at the universities of Oxford, Hull, Sheffield and Leeds. THE LANDING STAGE, his latest collection, is out from Lapwing, Belfast, and is available from good bookshops or online
Ian’s article, Selecting A Selected, was published on the Lancashire Writing Hub in June 2011.
Mark Charlesworth is a Lancashire based writer, and occasional musician. For more information, and free samples, please visit: www.markcharlesworth.blogspot.com