The collection’s editor seems to know where Major stands in the eyes of the (please excuse me) “underground” poetry readership, and as such there is a definite storyline here of the poems moving gradually from the studied, simple lyrics of the opener (‘Diagnosis’) to more experimental pieces that range from unsettling and immediate (‘Dirty Bomb’) to wry and silly (‘Botox Poem’). There are hints, throughout, of a concrete playfulness that (staying far away from gimmic and showmanship) focuses more attention on the content of the poems, not less. Witness how the early poem ‘Footprints’, its message settled, gets up and walks itself away, leaving pairs of “8”s to mark its place. This is the kind of dexterity that readers love and editors (especially online editors) hate for the patient web-designing it requires. Maybe the printed page still has a raison d’etre, after all.

I want to share some moments with you. Major’s voice, though clubbed flat by the disappointment all around him, is never meek. He uses poetry against itself, and uses poetic convention against his subjects. Here is a section of the second-to-last poem, one of several hinting at a loved one’s fall to drug addiction. It’s told in two unequal verses, with the last one having just a single, sad note:

Past Caring (excerpt)

…So in this verse I’ve turned
the clock back three years,
to find you in pubs and clubs,
on walks or engaged in talks.
In this verse, you’re
surrounded by friends and family,
because you don’t touch that stuff
until verse two, do

you.

Generally nihilistic, but never defeated, Major stiff-upper-lips it through modern England with a practiced flexibility that a difficult life, fully lived, demands. While some of the less bombastic poems do tend to flow together, there develops a general sense of punch-drunk energy to the work. This isn’t a theme in the traditional sense, it’s just a reflection of the man holding the pen, and the disembodied memories hanging over his shoulder like a troop of begging mutts.

At his best, Major is a hyperventilating elf of a writer, joyfully leaping back and forth between the physical, the internal, and the spiritual. There are lines here, and even a full poem or two, that exhume such compassion from their reader that they simply must have been pulled directly from the purest core of existence. ‘Experience’ is really the key dimension for appreciating Major’s work. Not just “experience” as counted in the years spent on this Earth (note= 44) or the occupation spent fuelling them (note=social worker) but rather a full mining of the offerings of perception. After reading poems like ‘Change’, you’re left with the impression of this sad man from England, his work done for the day, crawling into bed, shutting his two eyes, and leaving a third, giant one, unblinking and wide open, sucking in the night with bloodshot terror and revulsion. You wish him luck. You pay attention. Ideally, you buy his book.

Jacob McArthur Mooney lives in Canada. He is a co-editor at ThievesJargon.com.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.