What does a man in a chicken suit really have to say to you anyway?

Calls from the Outside World by Robert Hershon
(Hanging Loose Press)

Review by Nathan Thompson

I’m going to be honest. The thing that hooked me was seeing my name on the first page:

Celeste called work to leave a message
for Nathan. “Tell him Celeste called.
Tell him something happened”

(from 'Calls from the Outside World')

I guess this makes me narcissistic and shallow but either way it’s a good, conversational, opener and a decent parody of a stereotypical hook-line: you have to keep the reader interested, right? What better way than to say ‘something happened’ and italicise it? – Unless of course you get lucky and name a character after your reader. 

And that became a famous phone message
and part of the folklore
finally working its way into a byword at the
shop and it came to designate a
call from anyone’s spouse or
companion    Hey Richie, line six –
something

(from 'Calls from the Outside World') 

This kind of slangy everyday talk characterises the collection. And I like what Robert Hershon is up to: pointless and trivial things do, however unreasonably or inexplicably, become catchphrases in a communal environment or relationship. Private shared interpretation attaching a specific occult meaning to a casual or banal phrase is one way of adapting language to deal with experiences of commonality and the interjections of the alien. You don’t need to be creating new language or syntax to ‘make it new’. You just need to reinterpret and relocate the language you’ve got already and create a kind of coterie, or readership, of mutual understanding.  So far, so New York. But it implies exclusion too:

This must be why the linguists
invented prisons, as language laboratories
so that the whole country can imitate
the speech of young black men but
never actually have to see them, so white
golfers can cry You the man
and little blond girls can shout
You go, girl

(from 'Calls from the Outside World')

I wasn’t expecting the sardonic outburst of this final stanza. In a way it’s a welcome jolt but, while I can see how it relates to the others, I’m not sure this sort of sudden broad-brush social commentary improves the poem. It’s a long way to go in a short space, which, I suppose, kind of strengthens Hershon’s message, but maybe overbalances the poem, weighting it to teeter on the brink of polemic. (Or maybe I’m just grumpy because I’m feeling under the weather (aah), which might make up for seeing my name and being happy.  So I’m balanced and objective again. Honest. Anyway:) The slang in the poem outlasts the present staff and takes on a disembodied life of its own. Private language divorced from its original context becomes dangerous by emphasising separateness, creating a sense of ‘an elite’ based entirely on a banal accident. That conclusion, delivered as it is wittily and conversationally, is enough for me without the final stanza.

I love the second poem, ‘Chicken Suit’

A man in a chicken suit
stands at the subway exit
handing out flyers and loudly
proclaiming the virtues of
honey-fried wings or money-
back onion rings
It’s hard to understand him
through the plastic beak and
what does a man in a chicken suit
really have to say to you anyway
This assumes it’s always the same
man inside the chicken suit but
it might be a new guy every day
unless he is dedicated to this form
a career in a chicken suit
And I have been watching him
from the third floor window
for half an hour now
which may indicate the level
of my own ambition this morning
The eagle suit lies on a chair
waiting for a smart breeze

but I’m not going to say any more about it. What’s not to like? And this free-wheeling style is the backbone of the collection. Hershon’s laconic voice is well-suited to the delivery of sharp shocks of observation and absurdity, often combined with deft touches of imaginative humour:

Donna says olives are packed
in tall narrow jars so
all the olives can see out.

(from 'Olives')

But there is a knowing quality to the writing that can grate a little, as it does here, when the author starts on about the process of writing:

When I enter New York Hospital
to be carved upon by Doctor Fowler,
several people say “You might get
a good poem out of it, Donna did”

(from 'Olives')

On the whole though, I’m carping and fault-finding, which is probably not fair. Overall the collection made me feel happy. And it’s nice to feel happy, although there’s not much clever you can say about it. Except that in spite of the fact this is apparently Hershon’s twelfth collection he’s retained an enviable playfulness, as well as a confidence about using small subjects without always feeling the need to magnify them into symbols of something grander, that throws his moments of seriousness into relief (or vice versa depending on your tastes). And I love the feeling of happy-to-be-alive-in-spite-of-it-all that comes through. OK, there’s nothing technically astounding here. The use of line-breaks is great, but that’s about all you can say. Who cares? This is poetry that makes you glad to be the kind of person who reads poetry. And how often can you say that?      

      

Comments

[Rupert]

Didn't know you were called Celeste?

[Nathan]

Called to what?

[Rememberused]

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