Djelloul Marbrook
This collection of poems is comprised of two parts: the first half are poems which involve in some way the visual arts. Many were written in art museums, a few directly mention particular artists, and some are about the poet’s mother (Juanita Guccione), herself an artist of some renown.
One that struck me is the poem Basquiat, about the New York graffiti artist who died at the age of 27. Some of Marbrook’s political indignation springs out:
I think he’s politely suggesting we dig out
from under the contempt
business buries us in.
Read on …
I first got to know Marbrook’s work through his cultural/political blog at http://www.djelloulmarbrook.com/ In this blog he uses the skills and insight acquired from a long career in journalism to maintain a war against bullshit. During the Bush era the bblog stood out like a blast of common sense. This was a person who had worked for the mainstream papers, and has a longterm view of the relationship between the life of society and the media. The blog gives him the freedom and space to say things that could not be said in any newspaper. Without condescending, without being sensationalist, without commercial censorship.
Marbrook had spent years keeping the blog, and it had grown to attract hundreds of readers daily. The following question bugged me:
Why would someone who is so successful at addressing a mass audience regard poetry as the main project?
Perhaps I had accepted too much the preconception of poetry as a marginal activity. Perhaps I was half-convinced that many a poet would swap their verses for the chance to gain such a pulpit.
But back to the present collection. Basquiat brings out the poet’s more vociferous side. Understandably so if you read up on the artist’s life and works. I Saw Mona Lisa Once on the other hand is more a step-dance of thought.
The eye is best that distrusts the mind.
Image runs a gauntlet of lies
until one or the other dies
The second section in the collection is not so strongly associated with the theme of the visual arts. Some poems are posed like conundrums.
When the future started I must have missed it.
Just as well, it has never been as urgent
as the past, which I have no desire to undo
but a grand compulsion to understand
His work often has a taut interplay between wit and gravity. Between the private and the political spheres. The reader would do well to take his lines seriously.
Where I leave a thought becomes
a galaxy, the matter of astronomy
But Marbrook always delights and surprises with his twists of thoughts. At one moment he’s pondering the strange long eyes of mummies.The next he’s musing on an impatient mother at the gallery, or a visitor wearing Ray-Bans
I think the danger of UV
is not as great as seeing well.
So if you want to understand why an eminently sane person would prefer to write a poem rather than an essay in a national newspaper, read Marbrook’s poetry, either this or the previous collection Far From Algiers.
Valancourt The Viaduct reissue
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Irish Times Q+A