If there is a prevailing mood, then it might be that of loss. Many of the poems deal with death, while many others are to do remembrance of things past (which seem to be no more). Barbara Cartland, ostensibly – at least – the most perverse inclusion, in her contribution ‘To A Pekinese’, waxes elegiac about her late pet dog. The canine in question, “so soft, so sweet, so small”, has met with an untimely end while walking along the road. “The car didn’t stop and I found you there. / Your eyes were closed and your long white fur / Was covered in blood and you didn’t stir / When I called” is pretty stirring stuff from the Dame and justifies her inclusion.

Ostensibly, at least the world of La Cartland is far removed from that of shock punk rocker GG Allin. Allin, who died of a heroin overdose in 1993 is here represented by the lyrics from his song ‘Layin’ Up With Linda’. The song tells the tale of how he lived with the eponymous lady, before killing her while drunk/bored. Each verse ends with the revelation that “livin’ with Linda / used to be fun”. It keeps the theme of death, loss and nostalgia, while stretching the elastic of eclecticity to the last.

More traditional poetic fare comes from the pens of academic types such as Sir John Betjamin, whose ‘Late Flowering Lust’ maintains a similar theme of longing for something lost. “My head is bald, my breath is bad / Unshaven is my chin, / I have not now the joys I had / When I was young in sin” begins a meditative poem expressing a lust he feels for an unnamed lady. “I run my fingers down your dress / With brandy certain aim” he tells her, and the feeling is that he misses the libidinous energy of youth.

Beat poetry is well represented in this attractive volume with works from Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bukowski and Fran Landesman (whose husband Jay is often credited with ‘starting it all’ in terms of countercultural development). Ferlinghetti could be said to have started a lot of it in San Francisco. Ferlinghetti, owner of the City Lights bookshop and publishers, was the first to give voice to many of the great American Beat writers such as Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. He was and still is a fine poet himself. Always attacking the scared cows of authority, Ferlinghetti’s poem ‘Sometime During Eternity’ has him tell the story of Jesus in a faux-Jazz hep-cat patois. “Sometime during eternity / some guys show up / and of them / who shows up real late / is a kind of carpenter / from some square-type place / like Galilee / and he starts wailing / and claiming he is hep / to who made heaven / and earth / and that cat / who really laid it on us / is his Dad”, he begins, and anyone who has every heard or seen Ferlinghetti read his work will instantly hear his hard, clean delivery in the words.

Fran Landesman’s ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’ is a lament for … well, sad young men. With the subjective intuition only a woman can truly have, she feels such pity for the them (us?), “Sing a song of sad young men / Glasses full of rye / All the news is bad again / Kiss your dreams goodbye”. She continues for another seven singsong verses, like a twentieth century children’s fairytale warning of the dangers of being a sad, young man.

Any book which has words by Charles Bukowski in it, is a good one according to me. Bukowski, the booze-soaked bard of society’s underbelly, the gifted griot genius whose gibbered gems glitter from the gutter like golden glory, the streetwise hustler whose knowing schtick made him at odds with a literary establishment which couldn’t know what to do with such an individual. Enough hagiography already, but Buk was a writer in the all of the real senses. His poem here, ‘So You Want to be a Writer?’ is a piece of advice for budding scribes. “if it doesn’t come bursting out of you / in spite of everything / don’t do it. / unless it comes unasked out of your / heart and your mind and your mouth / and your gut, / don’t do it”, he says before going on to list numerous other reasons not to do it. “when it is truly time, / and if you have been chosen, / it will do it by / itself and it will keep on doing it / until you die or it dies in / you. / there is no other way. / and there never was.” he concludes. Bukowski was a writer who gave the impression that he might just be ‘retired nihilist’, whatever that might be, and his inclusion here adds to the quality of the book.

Elsewhere works by Benjamin Zephaniah, New York new wave legend Richard Hell, actor Steven Berkoff, and June Hird (mother of Laura) among others, keep the diversity and the quality very high. Poetry anthologies should, like ‘Various Artists’ musical compilations, be something that people can dip into again and again. If that is one of the criteria for their existence, then ‘Poems for the Retired Nihilist’ is soundly justified. But it is not that alone which makes a good book to have. The reflective tone, and of course the quality of the poems, makes it a most enjoyable experience.

Sean Walsh lives with his wife and two children near the town Killala in Co. Mayo. As a music and arts writer his work has appeared in publications such as artswest, CAFE News, Céide Review, magpie magazine, Hot Press and Irish Music magazine. He is also currently film critic with the Connaught Telegraph newspaper. After dropping out of college while studying Philosophy, he blagged his way into working in arts administration, which he still does. Currently completing an Open University Hons Degree in Humanities (one more module to go), he hopes to get down to serious writing soon.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.