Vigorous Vernacular - Tue May 5

You’d be surprised, I think, how often I’m sent emails to the Monkey Kettle Inbox asking me to review new poetry books people have released. I think some years back we somehow got added to a mailing list somewhere, and these publishing companies and self-publishing poets have no clue what’all that we’re a tiny wackadoo ragazine with a circulation of under 100 and controlled from a desk covered in tea-stains situated in between my bed and my bedroom door.

Anyway, that’s what I usually say to these soliciting emails, and make it clear that though I will review things for them, is it really worth their while? Almost without fail, they don’t actually answer this reply.

Besides, I’d rather try and have some kind of logical process at work behind the Reviewers’ “Art”. So generally I try and restrict it to people who a) have been in Monkey Kettle themselves at some point over the years, and / or b) are willing to send me a free copy in order to conduct said Review.

This has worked pretty well for me in the past – if I’ve included them in the mag before then there’s clearly something I already like about their writing. So if you’re asking, I’m happy to recommend things like “the loose end of the night”, a 2006 haiku book by one of my favourite local writers, Paul Grant; or “Ghostly Sightings Of The Pornographic Lady” by Rogan Whitenails, to my bleary peepers one of the top three most-talented writers ever to feature in our half-assed rag.

Or, now, “Vigorous Vernacular” by Kevin Densley, from Picaro Press. Kevin’s a poet from Australia who’s appeared in Monkey Kettle several times (#14, #23, the Monkey Kettle Book and next Autumn’s #32 if you’re counting!) – in fact it says so right there on the back of this nifty little collection! Caramba!

What’s good about Kevin’s writing – and the reason he feels a bit Monkey Kettley to me – is that he’s capable of doing several different things with his writing, and well. The longer poems about Australian history (e.g. “The Shooting of Fred Lowry at Tom Vardy’s Limerick Races Hotel near Goulburn, New South Wales, August 29th, 1863”) are competently written, but not really my cup of tea; but the wistful ones (e.g. “Matins”, “Scarlatti’s Pearls”, and MK fave “Her First And Second Husbands”) are spot on – not easy to do!

And best of all – the funny ones are not just overtly gag-laden, there’s other edges underneath. The occasional sharp point or dark shape breaks the comedic surface layer for those who want something more to their humour (e.g. “Grandfatherly Metaphysics”, “Ariadne Threadless”, “The Girl in the Giant Wombat Tourist Shop”).

It’s always good to read writers with a bit of ‘range’, makes my job sifting through the submissions a lot easier, anyway. Cheers Kevin, best of luck with it Down Under and, er, Up Over as you’re looking at it! ;-)

While I’m in this kind of effusive mood, a quick word also for north-eastern poetry mag “Moodswing” who sent me a copy of their produce a few months back. It’s a nicely executed idea, too – comes in a little A6 brown paper cover and folds out into a map-sized swathe of poetry. I don’t think they have a website though, so you’ll have to borrow my copy if you want to read it. Just let me know.