Linen Tough as History hits you with Chevalier's wit right from the first poem. She has an amazing ability to use language and imagery as commentary on contemporary life in Australia. 'ms marbig No. 26 16' jokingly critiques the sexism and misogyny sometimes found in the office. The sound of this poem captures this scene, with the 'click-clacks his documents'. The short lines resonate with the fast pace of office work. The shortness of the poem symbolises not only the female office worker's demise, as her boss is no longer satisfied with her look, which has become old and tired, but I like to think is also a metaphor for the short skirt that the boss desires. She has become:
...past your use-by-date, heThe sexuality of this poem, captured in that 'angry V', exaggerates and emphasises the misogyny of the boss. What a pig!
exposes her in public
whips her back into an angry V.
her rust assistants jam
printers, shredders, fax machines
The second part of this book is a series of ekphrastic poems. 'Untitled (Old woman in bed) 2000' is a poem written in response to Ron Mueck's sculpture. The poem is written in a block shape, a subtle suggestion that Chevalier is not an admirer of this sculpture. There is nothing gentle and fluid about the shape of the poem and there is nothing gentle about the content of her poem as she concludes:
Whose family does she belong to anyway? Why arethey letting her die in an art gallery? Whoever theyare, they are not taking care of her properly. I hopeshe is buried in art storage before my next visit.
Chevalier makes some interesting commentary on the social media and online language of the 21st century, for example in her poem 'droughts and close shaves at the cross':
that's not my real name that's my user nameHere we have a play on the concept of user names, in this case 'pirate' a sly, untrustworthy character. I looked up the word 'zane' which the urban dictionary defines as:
said pirate waiting for his zane to get a trim.
for when you use people?
for when I use.
bald (bad)ie picked up a com(b)ic
put on his eye patch...
| 1. | Zane | |
A badass rugged mother fucker who gets ALL them bitches.
Dude, Zane's a badass, he boinked like 5 chicks in the same night
|
||
| 3. | zane | |
Highly intellectual male with enormous hair and
little or no social skills. Has relationships bordering on homo erotic
with his red headed friends. Admired by the ladies due to his rugged and
hairy good looks supposedly enormous genitalia. All round nice guy.
(Friend) Hey is Zane coming to the pub tonight? He is so cool.
(Girl): Oh my God you mean THE Zane. He is such a stud.
I quite like this third definition and like to think that that is what Chevalier intended for the word. As for 'combic' I believe that this is an acronym for Combined Obscuration Model for Battlefield Induced Contamination. Again, I am only guessing that this is what Chevalier intended. If it I am right though, the poem starts with an awkward guy, lost in the world of gaming, or is he merely a sexually driven young man interested in comics? The poem then moves on to describe a small town - 'barbequed bats like sneakers / on power lines', the heat, the small barber desperate for the rain - 'hair grows faster when its raining. The heat and dryness of the town is made real in Chevalier's imagery.
There are so many more poems that I could write about, but I think I will leave it at that for today. Please for anyone who has read this book comment what you thought of it and perhaps your reading of one or more of her poems. There is so much going on in her poetry from the political, as Puncher & Wattman point out, to the ekphrastic poems and her "fresh and feisty" commentary on "...contemporary tensions between the cosmopolitan and parochial, stretching from Sydney down the escarpment to Wollongong" (Keri Glastonbury - comment on back cover of Chevalier's book).
You can check at Chevalier's web page at http://juliechevalier.net/ You can purchase the book at http://www.booktopia.com.au/linen-tough-as-history/prod9781921450501.html | ||
Lovely post, Rhiannon. It's fascinating – and instructive – how very differently you and I responded to this book.
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