I’d still have been annoyed about the plums, Meg Barton
Poet’s House Pamphlets, Oxford, 2022 £7.00
A winning wit
For poetry readers, the arresting title of this pamphlet prompts a memory. That memory is clarified by flicking to ‘Apologies’, the closing poem:
If I was Mrs
Carlos Williams
I’d still have been annoyed
about the plums.
William Carlos Williams is likely to be a familiar name and it’s easy to check his plum poem, ‘This is just to say’. But ‘Mrs’ at the end of Barton’s first line sets up a gender tension. Its impertinence will draw a smile, even a laugh, and plumps the reader firmly into the 21st century.
Wit isn’t easy. Four of the sixteen poems deserve high marks for what I’d call situation humour. The voice is very much a speaking one, the tone casual. Some poems are in stanzas, one traditionally end-rhymed, others are strung out in free verse.
‘What if …’, the opening poem, is another winner, unlaboured and fun. After its first-line title it begins
… you were teleported
Into Ancient Greece, or Ancient Babylon,
Or the court of King Alfred,
Appearing at their fireside like
A vision.
Here, the word ‘teleported’, recurring as ‘the teleporter voice’, accomplishes a time switch. Historical awareness is combined with the electronic presence of a panel quiz. Admissions of failure (’What on earth would you say?’ and ‘My mind’s gone blank’) create comedy.
‘Please don’t send me home from Ikea’ fills the centre pages. To anyone familiar with the store, the poem’s instruction leaflet diction is hilarious. The movement is light and rhythmic, the sexual references interwoven. It could almost be a song.
‘Paris holiday’ compares French and British idiosyncrasies in a way that highlights identity. Once again, it is clever, observant, and — yes — witty.