Jack R.F. Langley, 28 pp, card cover, £2.50, ISBN 1 900968 70 3, Equipage,
c/o Rod Mengham, Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL 

The first piece in this book, Man Jack, runs to about 90 lines. Each line
zips along a rough iambic pentameter constantly subverted by violent
enjambments e.g. 
"And he must come along, and he must stay
close, be quick and right, …"
or frenetic phonetics:
" … a step ahead, deep in the hedge, on
edge, a kiss a rim, at pinch, in place, turn
face and tip a brim, each inch of him, …"
Jack's turbulent character established, the line calms down a little (in
fact the piece ends with a rhyming couplet.) Imagery that might be leadenly
significant in a sparer poem has a tender, off-the-cuff quality in this
crowded and noisy assemblage:
" … Tom speaks
inside his cheeks. The moon talks from inside
his belly. …"

The fourth piece, Tom Thumb, takes a very simple scene, someone preparing
shrimps for dinner in a cottage while birds fly around outside. The quality
of the writing is extraordinary. On first reading, I found myself bolt
upright, the book falling from my hands as the poem tore through me. How to
quote from this cloth that won't be cut? Try this:

" We should accept the obvious facts of physics.
The world is made entirely of particles in
Fields of force. Of course. Tell it to Jack….

"… Nor just because it's nine pm and
this is when, each evening since we came, the fifty
swifts, as passionately excited as any 
particles in a forcefield, are about to end 
their vesper flight by escalating with thin shrieks
to such a height that my poor sight won't see them go.

"… Decapitate them first, then, stripping off
the legs, pinch out, if they were females, all their black
and yellow eggs. And Jack, as usual, was not
at hand to help …"

"… This is the fly, so tightly fitted
in its place I feel its savage elbows piston
in and out, though all it does is carefully wash
its face. "


Which does not communicate the wonderful narrative grace with which these
bizarre (in the way actual experience is fundamentally strange) epiphanies
are uncovered.

 Do yourself a huge favour and get hold of this book.

Also available from Peter Riley, 27, Sturton Street, Cambridge CB1 2QG,
England.
Email: [log in to unmask]

(apologies for cross posting)

Randolph Healy

from [log in to unmask]


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