Third Wish Wasted by Roddy Lumsden (Bloodaxe Books, £7.95)

If something becomes too painful you eventually begin to laugh about it. Half way through Third Wish Wasted, when certain poems stray into bitter-laughable parodies of poetry itself, its tropes, its expectations and the persona we come to think of as the poet, comes the uncomfortable feeling that so far and from now on, you as the reader have become the butt of one big joke (Then worse than that, the persuasion that in reading you are proving a mysterious point and playing into the palm of Lumsden's hand). However, in identifying the conceits of creating and interpreting poetry, Lumsden does the art no disrespect, instead he makes us aware of one of the things that make poetry such a joy to read and write, namely that it is not, so to speak, important. It is unimportant in that it has no definite or practical function other than to exist, the best art does indeed resist interpretation. Third wish wasted perfectly demonstrates that to be uncertain is the only certainty and as such the only way to be contented when reading poetry (read Liminal for a beautiful example).

From the above summary it can be guessed that Roddy Lumsden's fifth collection can be uncomfortable to read, no less so for his slightly more down to earth exploration of dreams crushed, lives unlived and relationships that never quite were. But under the weight of the metaphysical humour these themes, heralded on the book's back cover, seem only to exemplify and symbolise the trauma of being mistaken, reallocated and forced into meanings and personalities that were never your intention. Which, given the accompanying sensation of being batted around by the arm of an unseen god, is a feeling infinitely more distressing and powerful anyway.

Having most if not all of the poems in this collection come inexorably back to the same vein gives them depths of pity or comedy which otherwise might not have been so effective. There are poems where men and women only exist in an acknowledgment of the gaps they leave, and others where we are unconscious that somebody loves somebody else until the last line, by which time it is too late to find either of them. Knowing that your meanings, yourself and everyone around you can be irrevocably misinterpreted and lost makes these absences so much more desperate. Likewise DPD and Maximising the Audience show how observation is all it takes to turn a person into somebody else, and the tenuousness of self and meaning that permeate the book make the possibility of this terrifying and fantastic in its own turns. Without the jokes the serious moments wouldn't sting so hard, without the seriousness the humour is no longer so ironic or whip sharp.

Under the cover of would-bes, has-beens and lost futures Roddy Lumsden appears to be fighting the general attitude of text plus context equals meaning by presenting a parody of "Roddy Lumsden" as opposed to 'Roddy Lumsden'. He refuses to draw the fine line between the self-referential and the imagined, leading nowhere, elsewhere or erasing the path behind him and playing us with teasing technical tricks. Lumsden is a humorist and a brilliant artist, and his latest collection is both a challenging and a wonderful one.


Catherine Woodward

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