richard barrett's the hard shoulder

I said before the weekend I'd have a look at Richard Barrett's The Hard Shoulder which is emerging through his blog at the moment. So probably the first thing you should do is go and have a read of it.

Finished? Good, then let's begin.

Almost immediately apparent are distinct uses of language, some of which are unique to written language, that run through the poem so far. These are reported language, hesitations and colloquial speech, anachronistic or 'poetic' language, imperatives, utterances apparently directed at the reader, and the use of punctuation symbols. Barrett collages these different uses together in such a way that there is no continuous narrative or argument. Overall there may be locations or themes that might be discerned, but they are not the main focus here and I'll come to them at the end.

From my limited critical reading, and the poetry I've encountered over the last two years - I'm thinking especially of Caroline Bergvall, Allen Fisher, Tony Lopez, J H Prynne, Robert Sheppard and Tony Trehy - it's become evident that one characteristic of some innovative practices over that last thirty years or more has been the use of non-poetic vocabularies, and language that has no particular authorial 'stamp'. This is a technique I've attempted to utilise with only limited success. Barrett appears to be venturing something similar here, and with greater success. To begin let's look at each of the distinct uses of language used in turn.

reported language

Although reported language is the first identifiable distinct use of language there is only one use I can be certain of which comes the sixth line of the first posted extract:

- please do not attempt to board whilst
the doors are shutting -

To anyone who ever travels by rail this is instantly familiar. It is a standard safety warning on trains. But the text before and after this sentence includes no indication of a journey being undertaken, or change of location. In fact this the first indicator of any kind of specific location.

This quotidian, anonymous, functional sentence and its context of surrounding, unconnected sentences begins to signal the kind of poetry Barrett is writing. And within its context it also becomes apparent what kind of poetry he isn't writing. He isn't writing a mimetic poetry that will attempt to conjure up the rhythms of the train wheels, or provide a naturalistic description of the train. We are not even told that there is a train, what matters here is the language.

hesitations and colloquial speech

More common are the hesitations, the written renderings of verbal throat-clearings:

let us ascend to - uh
reach new heights or something

Yet that was a – er – proper medical condition
and everything

Catheterized - erm - e - eh
Just what are you trying to say?!

Like the decontextualised reported language of signs and announcements it's hard to see what sort of function this kind of language would have in conventional poetry except as a kind of spurious naturalism, something to provide the illusion of the poet addressing the reader directly, or quoting actual speech. But Barrett doesn't appear to be venturing any kind of poetic reportage. These sentences are isolated and trail off. They come from nowhere and lead nowhere.

The first two examples also contain examples of colloquial speech, verbal tics commonly appended to speech: 'or something', 'and everything'. Although whether deliberately or not they perform a similar function here to the function they perform in speech. In conversation they are verbal handwaves, the equivalent of etc. They might be purely rhetorical, indicating nothing in particular 'proper medical condition / and everything', or potentially blur over more specific instances 'reach new heights or something'. In conversation in both cases they close down that particular statement. That also proves to be the case here. But again it is because the poem moves elsewhere rather than any pretence that this is actual speech. It might in fact be verbatim speech previously overheard but if so we have nothing to tell us it is.

anachronistic/'poetic' language

Although I will attempt not to allow it to contaminate my commentary I have difficulties with the use of anachronistic or 'poetic'/elevated language. This is because of its thoughtless use by some writers who seem to believe that an elevated diction signifies poetic significance. But I realise that in more skilled hands it acts to signify the artificiality of poetry, to draw attention to the fact that the poem consists of written words, that it is not a window through which we look at the world:

o unidentifiable aroma!

I am not a churl.

How slow the inspectors are

While these examples are less extended than others I have seen they are noticeably strange. They cause this reader to stutter, to wonder why this curious formulation is here. Which then leads to consideration of why other parts of the poem are written as they are.

We can read these anachronisms as essentially comic, bathetic and absurd remnants of a poetic history which still informs public perceptions of what poetry is and looks like. But they could also be seen as post-modern 'sampling' of the textures of poetic tradition.

imperatives

I have separated Barrett's use of imperatives from his language apparently addressed at the reader simply because the imperatives could equally well be reported speech, or internally directed personal exhortations:

Distract us!

Running down
Quay side ----- and count!

Twitch
wait / missed a
beneath ground advance

Two of these examples are further emphasised by the use of exclamation points. Being written and detached from any explanatory context they are effectively meaningless. Although we might take them as being directed at us as readers we are unable to act on them. If they have a function it appears to be a disruption of the surface. They are points at which the text if performed by reading aloud, or read quietly as if listening to someone read, seems to pause. The exclamation points already mentioned serve this function in two of the examples. In the third there is a space and then an oblique line followed by another space before the text resumes, 'wait / missed a'. I should also note here that the use of the oblique line here rather than splitting the line allows Barrett to play with the reader's expectations by ending the line with 'missed a', clearly leading us to expect the cliche 'missed a beat'. Instead the sentence resumes 'beneath ground advance', briefly playing with 'be...' (especially if the poem is read aloud) before heading in a different direction.

directed at the reader

Some sentences by being addressed to 'you' or by asking questions appear to be directed at the reader. Or at a putative reader who is the addressee of the poem. This kind of address can often be found in song lyrics and in confessional poetry, where it usually ignores the contradiction inherent in making personal, individual statements in work intended for a public audience. Barrett however seems to be aware that such addresses are rhetorical constructs:

Can I have a quid please for chips?

Finally
please turn out the light.

As with his use of imperatives these are meaningless. Or at least they are impossible for us to respond to. If we have chosen to read the poem as confessional, or as a direct address to us as readers then we have been painted into a corner. We have to reconsider our reading strategy. They could be read as reported speech, but I think that such an approach risks being extended to the whole of the text rendering it an accumulation of quotations and little more.

Rather I believe that each distinct different use of language has a slightly different role. So reported language seems to refer to an external world that is never made concrete, that remains in disconnected fragments. Hesitations highlight the fact that this is written language, and not the items of actual speech they purport to be. And so forth, cumulatively pointing out that this is a poem, a specific literary object.

punctuation symbols

This is especially emphasised by the frequent use of punctuation symbols in often non-standard ways:

Yet ((( while you queue I
read Baudelaire.

/// while echoes out
(((the sound of))) revolutionary shot.
Please----------but

Fix your teeth
--------------------repeatedly

)))SQUEEZING(((

As a reader I wonder first how I am supposed to read each of these instances of non-standard punctuation. What do they represent? Do they represent the same thing? If so why is each instance so different? Do they have a particular meaning or significance for the author? Does it matter? Clearly these are only events that exist on the page. The poem is an object, it is print on a page, or at present letters and symbols viewed on a screen.

The final two examples given - the long dash made of discontinuous small dashes, and the inwardly turned brackets almost mimetically pushing against the word 'SQUEEZING' point to the possibility that they might have something in common with the anachronistic/'poetic' language looked at earlier. They could allude to concrete/typewriter poems of the 1960s and '70s.

My first response to any poem is visceral, whether I enjoy it or not. So far I have greatly enjoyed The Hard Shoulder. The next stage is often to attempt to work out what it says to me. Whether it has a particular message, or a set of themes. After the first two parts I detected a sense of anomie, or at least a kind of restlessness/rootlessness, an anxiety about self in relation to place. There is certainly language of isolation and alienation, 'I let you ring off.', 'Your eyes, they look so empty.'; of anxiety and uncertainty, '/ all nervy, the outline, unsteady', 'How precarious this shit is'; and of movement from one place to another, 'Before the carriage moves', 'bumper to bumper'. But there appears to be more going on.

There is also language of medicine, of contemporary technology such as mobile phones, of offices, of urban life - specific locations within Salford in particular. There are sections which appear to refer to things written on other writer's blogs:

I was a cloud
The selection process used was mysterious

might refer to Tony Trehy's recent posts in connection with the commissions for regional artworks connected to the 2012 Olympics. Tony was shortlisted with a proposal (The Language Moment) that lost to (in my opinion) a less interesting proposal for a cloud in Liverpool. But while this knowledge might be helpful to the reader it doesn't seem essential, and as there is nothing to indicate that this is the source of the image it remains supposition. Barrett might just as well be making an allusion to Wordsworth.

I am not going to attempt to say what the poem might be 'about' or what its themes are because it appears to be still in the process of being written, and because I haven't read it quite as closely or as often I as I would like. As mentioned I am enjoying watching it emerge in pieces, and this post is really part of my attempt to make sense of it so far, as well as to point it out to readers who may not have seen it yet.