Cassandra Complex – a review

Jonathan Taylor’s impressive new collection is reviewed…

[image error]

This new collection from the multi-talented Jonathan Taylor (novelist, memoirist, poet) is, in his own words ‘a collection of poems, found poems, found translations, mis-translations, prophecies, pseudo-prophecies, apocalyptic visions and moments of retroactive clairvoyance.’ These heteroglossic voices are gathered together in four ‘movements’, foregrounding the (mainly classical) musical motifs which reoccur throughout, a preoccupation of Taylor’s in his oeuvre to date. From the very first poem in the collection, ‘Liar’, there is a wry destabilisation of the many prognostications we are bombarded by on a daily basis. The haruspices of the past, decoding entrails, become the pundits of the present – failing to predict storms, election and referendum results. The intertextuality is dizzying, and could easily alienate the less adventurous reader, but there is a strong strain of humour throughout, an often exasperated tone that most people could relate to who throw their hands up in the air at the craziness of modern life. And some poems are so direct and relatable they are almost unbearable to read, such as ‘Crap Allegory’, about Grenfell Tower, or ‘My Father’s Paranoia’, concerning a filial dereliction of duty. Others offer an excoriating deconstruction of facile aspects of modern life, as in ‘Person Specification’. Some poems interrogate the act of poetry in a self-reflexive and witty way, such as ‘This Poem is Too Neat’. Taylor may wear his wide-ranging learning on his sleeve, but he is never at risk of ‘dumbing down’ to the reader, or playing to the crowd in a Slam Poetry way. Although some of this does work in performance, many of these are ‘page-poems’ that warrant re-reading. It is a Pandora’s Box of disasters and delights, and is worth opening up.

Kevan Manwaring 2018

Available from: http://www.shoestring-press.com/2018/06/cassandra-complex/