Customer Reviews

The Shout: Selected Poems

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The Shout is a compilation of poems from past works by Armitage. The very readable poems in the book, both traditional and experimental, encompass a world of subject matter. I don't usually read much poetry, preferring fiction, but after stumbling on this collection I might start.

The poems freshly explore both the banal and the transcendent with wry humor, authenticity, lyricism and originality.

Darkly humorous "Gooseberry Season" tells the story of an annoyed family calmly murdering an unwelcome houseguest. The elegant, melancholic "To His Lost Lover" is a man's reflection on the experiences he never had in a relationship, regretting "how they never slept like buried cutlery," and he "never drank intoxicating liquors from her navel/ Or christened the Pole Star in her name." "You're Beautiful" is one of my favorites, which you can find online with some searching. Order this book!

All too often these days poetry is something like "I am/but I am not/and there is a puzzle/piece/on the wall" and you feel like it should mean something but you're not sure what.

Simon Armitage is different. The imagery is clear and the language he uses is crystalline in its sharpness and exactitude. The verses are structured with a seamless fluidity so that they flow effortlessly, and yet you are aware of how tightly regimented the words are. This is the work of a master poet, and it shows. All of his poems, no matter how short or long, require several readings: the first time, you are only aware of the precision in the cadence and the evocative images he uses; the second, you start to understand the story he's telling (all of his poems are, essentially, stories); third, you are trying to come to terms with the whys and the hows; fourth, you start to grasp the symbolism and the meaning.

And the strange thing--it never gets old. You read the poems once, twice, ten, fifty times, and each time there is something to marvel at. It's like an old Beatels' LP--you know all the songs on there by heart, you know every note, and yet when you listen to it yet again, there's always something more.

Simon Armitage's poetic presence in Britain may be an answer to the absence of Philip Larkin; every line in these very poemly poems (Armitage is clearly a master of craft) smell of that same chilling, melancholic smoke Larkin could produce with just a few short lines.

While the title poem is devastating and to be read and re-read for poets who are just getting on to the business of "short impact" poetry: ("The Shout" is a three line stanza, 20 word gunshot blast to the reader's psyche) we find more of who Armitage is by perusing the entire collection. He goes from blazing hot to blazing hot, only occasionally to lukewarm when he writes "love affair" poems that are at times indistinguishable from any younger poet's attempt to convey these kinds of things.

The poems take off when Armitage decides to adopt Weldon Kees' doomed Everyman Robinson. Adding a sort of irascibility and rebelliousness to Kees' mostly helpless and docile figure, "Mr Robinson's Holiday" shows some lifeblood in the otherwise flaccid persona: "Robinson damned if he'll pay an extra pound/for a plug in the bath, soaking for an hour at least/with his heel in the hole/Then without a towel/drying off on a curtain/Typical, Robinson/Typical."

The sole flaw I find in this collection is that Armitage tries on so many new faces, uses so many different poetic devices, that it becomes a bit confusing. Who *is* the poet underneath all of these disguises? On the other hand this is also to be praised: in the contemporary world of poetry there are so many one note numbers and lazy mediocrities propelling postmodern drivel that to encounter a flesh and blood poet as the one we have here is an absolute reward.

A great collection.

Simon Armitage, The Shout (Harcourt, 2005)

According to Charles Simic's introduction to this volume, Simon Armitage is one of Britain's most popular modern poets. This collection, while a bit hefty for a single-author outing, makes it easy to see why; like Billy Collins, Armitage is a master at balancing the quotidian with the poetic, coming up with poems that are without a doubt poetry, yet still easily readable and, oftentimes, a good deal of fun (though with a dark tang):

"No gearing up or getting to speed, just an instant rage,
the rush of metal lashing out at air, connected to the main.
The chainsaw with its perfect disregard, its mood
to tangle with cloth, or jewellry, or hair.
The chainsaw with its bloody desire, its sweet tooth
for the flesh of the face and the bones underneath,
its grand plan to kick back against nail or knot
and rear up into the brain.
I let it flare, lifted it into the sun
and felt the hundred beats per second drumming in its heart,
and felt the drive-wheel gargle in its throat."
("Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass")

Good stuff both for the seasoned poetry reader and the novice who got soured on it in school. I do wish they'd chosen a slightly slimmer volume, though; Armitage's stuff can definitely give meaning to the phrase "too much of a good thing." Peruse at leisure. ***