In this play McDonagh has proved that he can write dialogue. The question is, and it is a question Michael Billington is constantly asking, will he continue to write for the theatre or be poached by television and film? There is no doubt that a writer with his facility for speech could find a lucrative niche. Yet if he chooses to make the theatre his home, and I hope he will, he needs to look more to O'Casey than to the melodrama that televsion audiences feed on, more to Beckett than to the conventional drama that majority audiences absorb. My guess is that young writers of his ilk fear that if they stray too far from the conventional, they will be rejected. Theatres today cannot afford productions like THE BIRTHDAY PARTY which sent its audiences away wondering what it was about. Which brings me back to my original point:

where are the Harrison Birtwistle's of playwriting ? When will we see again young writers who dare to challenge the conventions, to subvert all our expectations about the theatre? I think that behind the writing of this play is a nod to television, to its naturalism, its spatchcock plots and emotional unreality. Which is not to say that McDonagh might not be capable of robust plotting and emotional reality. I'm sure he might, but he needs courage. The kind of courage which will eliminate from his future work the unconvincing devices with which he chose to end this one. There is much promise in this play but no writer of promise ever produced something lasting without being brave; brave enough not to play safe. If McDonagh wants to be more than a one or two hit wonder or a rich scribbler of transient scripts, he needs to cast aside the conventions, cease manipulating both his characters and his audiences, forget the well-made play and write something artistically daring. He has a lot of growing up to do.

Confessions of an Old Believer - Jim Burns
The Gox - Steven Blyth   Redbeck Press 24 Aireville Rd Frizioghall, Bradford BD9 4HH

 Here are two interesting collections from David Tipton's Redbeck Press, one from an old hand and the other from an eager beaver. Over the years Redbeck has helped into print many writers who would otherwise have struggled. David Tipton has worked hard on behalf of other writers and his own rewards have often been modest. Still, he must be glad to be able to publish work of this kind. 

I have never met Jim Burns personally but I have followed his work over more than twenty years. His output of poems, reviews and essays is considerable, if you know where to look for it. In this collection are more than seventy poems from a period of about ten years all marked by that wry modesty that is Jim Burns's signature. His poems do not attempt to be significant, he doesn't ry to stun us with his wisdom or insight. Nor does he parade before us his consummate deftness with language. it is in small observations that he looks for clues to what it means to be human and he uses a simple, straightforward language that is no less carefully chosen for that. Through his poems emerges the vision of a modest man who has learned to look at life and at human foibles slightly askance, not to set himself apart or above, but to try to cast a little oblique light on our condition. In these poems you can find humour, tragedy, compassion, bitterness some anger and a lot of love. But you will seldom find boredom or triteness.  

There are several references to communism, socialism, the workers' struggle in general and the title poem tells the story of the poet's disillusion with the politics of the left. Not that there is any move rightwards or an apologetics for capitalism, rather the regret at the failure of socialism is mingled with a sense that its expectations were, perhaps, always too high. But Burns obviously still cherishes affectionately some of the great figures and moments of the workers' movement.. In THE CALL he gets a nicely ironic piece out of the fact that a hall where Big Bill Haywood and A.J.Cook once spoke is now a bingo palace. His bitterness and, perhaps, even sense of having been let down is tempered by an ability to see the funny side, but it is, of course, a slightly dark humour.To anyone with even a passing interest in the collapse of communism and the failure of socialism this collection should appeal, not that it is full of historical detail but rather because Burns shows us how it feels to have been part of the movement, of its promise defeated. Through defeat, though, comes the feeling, as Nathaneal West put it that all order is doomed but the struggle is worthwhile. There are no answers here. But there is a belief that some things are worth fighting for. This is a poetry of hope.

  I don't want to give the impression that the book is about nothing but the historical and political. On the contrary, Burns delights in the little ironies of personal relations. He also writes about jazz, the bohemian life, the country and the city, books, and the oppressive gregariousness and ubiquitous noise of contemporary culture. I recall that when Peter Porter reviewed Burns's INTERNAL MEMORANDUM he called him "humane, randy and highly skilled ". He may be a little less randy these days but the other two categories still apply. There is no ideology in his work but in poem after poem comes the sense that a more humane life is within our grasp if only we had the courage to seize it. As for the skill, all the effort is to be clear, to use language unostentatiously but with poignancy. The words, the line-ends, the forms are carefully chosen. They give that impression of effortlessness which the best poetry always displays. It isn't easy to write poetry which is not afraid to embrace ideas but which remains accessible, humourous, wry, but seldom trite or time-serving. Of course, the danger of this kind of poetry is that it can tilt into cut up prose and I find that Burns sometimes has a problem in ending a poem: the search for the effect, the punch-line if you like, is a little too strained.

  Reading this collection I wondered why Burns has never been taken up by a big publisher either for his poetry or his prose (he has written extensively about jazz, the Beats and much else) though I suspect from his work that he would not be too pleased to have too much attention from the literary establishment. Still, I can think of many poets published by big houses whose work is not as interesting or as original as this. It's when you read a book like this that you realize just how important the small presses and people like David Tipton really are. Without them, think of all the voices we would never hear.

  It was interesting to read Jim Burns's collection along with Steven Blyth's. There are certain similarities but Steven Blyth differs in having absorbed influences which weren't around when Burns began to find his voice. There is an echo of Simon Armitage but the poems are not derivative. He uses a multiplicity of poetic persona and each one seems to approach the world with a sense of hesitancy, as if life is so baffling, what is happening to us can hardly be grasped. I suppose you could call Blyth's work, The Poetry Of Bewilderment. His characters( and his poems do create characters) tell their little stories in a faux-naif voice which points up the peculiar in the commonplace, the curious aspect all those things we take for granted assume when we look at them hard enough. The voices come at you from an unexpected angle. Poems begin: "Here I am, sorting out my belongings" or "Gig. It's a word she uses all the time." It is as if standing at the bar, minding your own business with your drink, one of those invasive tap-room philosophers starts bending your ear. And Blyth's poems provide the same kind of amusement. His characters talk as though they know what they're talking about precisely because at the same time it is clear they . don't. Their words never quite manage to get purchase on the reality they reach out to grasp. It is in the gap between our pretentions to understanding and our failure to understand that Blyth finds his humour. In SUMS the first line of which is quoted above, the narrator sorting out his things is helped by a friend, Rob. While they take a break they chat about their friends and the different ways they have of expressing love. Rob offers his homely explanation and the poem ends on a nice twist as the crosses in a long discarded maths exercise book bring to mind the kisses in cards. It is neatly done and almost makes you laugh out loud. It treats, of course, of a serious matter: the pain of divorce or the failure of love, but the pain is hidden behind the humour and the oblique observation. It's only when you think carefully about the poem that you realize it has touched on the tragedy that is at the heart of the commonplace experience of the end of a relationship.  

Some of the poems are about childhood and Blyth obviously enjoys nostalgia, the opportunity it provides for exploring innocent views of life. This innocence, the world being different from how we think and feel about it, keys in, of course, to the sense of bewilderment. THE IMPORTATION OF AIR shows how a childish misconception and foolishness lead to a disappointment which, though small, points to the kind of tragic disillusion we must all experience as we grow up and leave behind our charmed childhoods. TAG deals with our attempts to recreate the past or at least to connect with it only to find it can never be retrieved and is always distorted by our present wish to remake it according to today's needs. A kindred idea is pursued in GIG where the title word has one meaning for the young while its onomatopoeia brings an entirely different set of connotations to someone a generation older. Time passes. Values change. Sacrifices and even horrors are forgotten by those who never lived through them. The pace of modern events opens up a chasm between one generation and the next. How to hold on to what is precious ? How to bridge the gap ? Steven Blyth, like Jim Burns, offers no answers, but he knows how to ask the right questions.  

If Blyth has a weakness, it is that he relies too heavily on the narrative poem, homeliness, the small ironies of the recognizable. It works but it has a limit and the little descents of language and sentiment you find in the poems, almost chatty, confidential asides to the reader, while having warmth and friendliness might start to jar in a full collection. Still, I shall watch for Blyth's work in the small presses and look forward to seeing a longer volume to see if he knows how to develop as a writer from this auspicious beginning.  

I wonder if the younger writer will publish all his work in small press collections like the older man ? So much unmemorable poetry pours from the small presses that it is a relief to have books like these that you can look forward to taking down from the shelf over and over. It is a great tribute to the modesty and integrity of Jim Burns that he has stayed loyal to the small presses in which he made his well-earned reputation. It is a comment too on the perversity of the publishing world. Much third-rate poetry by untried writers is published by big houses, yet a solid experienced writer must go to a small publisher to get into print. Perhaps Steven Blyth will be luckier, but in any case, these books make clear just why small presses are so valuable and why you most definitely can't judge writers by their imprint.