The Opposite of Cabbage by Rob A. Mackenzie (Salt Publishing, £12.99)

If reviewers really are getting lazy Rob A Mackenzie has set them quite a challenge ‘Plenty of reviews are only settling old scores, or helping to cement a status quo.’ he says in his blog Surroundings ‘Some may tell you plenty about a reviewer’s opinions and enthusiasms, but they miss out the book under consideration’. A review should be full of ‘unravellings and…unexpected discoveries’ some even say ‘that the best review for a book is simply to print one of the poems’. Upon reading this I developed an instant liking for the man, particularly as The Opposite of Cabbage, his first full collection since the chapbook The Clown of Natural Sorrow, practises the same sort of openness and will for discovery that he preaches. So, in case we’re not quite ready for the simple printed poem approach, I’ve made it my mission to review Mackenzie’s collection in the only terms it deserves, the terms of Cabbage.

First of all, Mackenzie’s humour is undeniable, particularly where Scotland is concerned. Almost inevitably a Scottish poet will develop his own Scotland in his poetry, but Mackenzie ironises and, with good-natured humour, celebrates the infinity of Scotland. This is done exquisitely in Scotlands, an imaginary coach tour of the country ‘Everyone now feels/discriminated against and half the passengers board a ferry to Nova Scotia…and there is bitterness, bitterness against those who left,/bitterness at speed bumps’. His comic poems are delightfully absurd and fittingly take for their subjects the ridiculousness of certainties; the certain identity of Scotland, certainties of what is good, certainties of what makes good or bad poetry… I’m thinking here of Mackenzie’s hilarious sestina A Creative Writing Tutor Addresses his Star Pupil ‘Above all, you must/end a line with the words ‘John Ashbery’ -/that’s the benchmark of style’.

I think it must be the title that lends the peculiar magic to Mackenzie’s comedy; before you can ascertain an opposite of something you must establish the essential characteristic of that thing i.e. if there is absolute cabbage, must there also be non-cabbage? Are there tables and non tables? Doilies and non doilies? The very concept opens up a surprisingly vast potential for thought, and Mackenzie’s poetry has tapped into it.

However, it is not just Mackenzie’s comic poetry which has this same aura of potential; all of Cabbage is steeped in it. Cabbage is full of surprising turns and dips in mood and subject; it never falls into a single track; there are poems of death and fading, opportunities missed and mistakes made. Interviewed by Very Like A Whale Mackenzie said ‘I wanted to scatter poems with similar themes throughout the book…I wanted there to be less obvious connections from poem to poem, but I hoped the whole would feel like a unity’, and it does.

Cabbage doesn’t burrow towards a central theme like many collections, it floats in an out, allowing the reader to alight on subjects and creating opportunities to be surprised and unexpectedly excited. I found this not just in theme and organisation but also in style. Often in Cabbage there appears to be a refusal to burrow too far into a subject, Mackenzie stays just at a level where something is not quite understood, his world is a world of impressions and limited perspectives where understandings are near yet far. This approach, if we want empathetic realism, hits the nail on the head. I was particularly impressed with Visiting Hour, which uses a layer of metaphor as interference between the subject and the world around him - the effect is heart-rending. ‘Her beak nuzzels his hair./She will drop him squealing to her nest./A young dove, wrapped up/in his own mythology, affirms a pulse./The freshly perfumed hawks/beat out their applause’. And finally, one last surprise from Cabbage. Mackenzie often tackles big, idealistic, sentiment-filled issues. Cabbage alone sees materialiam, Americanisation, meaninglessness of life and death; with Mackenzie’s tendency to not burrow into the issue, it’s easy to pass these poems off as blunt nods to the clumsy opinions we’ve already heard from teenagers and men in pubs. But then it occurred to me - cabbage and non-cabbage. These big, clumsy certainties regarding manylayered issues (just like Scotland and cabbages) do exist, even if we don’t want to hear them. It’s no good ignoring it, for how can we unleash the potential of the opposite of cabbage if we avoid cabbage itself?


Catherine Woodward

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