{"id":457,"date":"2010-03-23T14:04:35","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T14:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/?p=457"},"modified":"2025-02-03T11:52:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T11:52:57","slug":"from-the-editor-issue-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/2010\/03\/23\/from-the-editor-issue-64\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Editor – Issue 64"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE MANDATE<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As the first ripple of the crowd\u2019s laughter
\nstruck the air like a window breaking
\nto let in a fresh autumn breeze,
\nthe Emperor lifted a bare arm
\nand slowly wiped away a tear.
\n\u2018Oh child,\u2019 he said gently, \u2018if only
\nyou knew how much strength that laughter
\ngives to the enemies of our nation.
\nLaugh, child, laugh. I weep for you
\nand for us all.\u2019 The laughter died
\nas if someone had tripped a switch.
\nThe boy looked around, dumbstruck.
\nMany hands reached out for him
\nas bottles were smashed, stones picked up.<\/p>\n

Three days later, the Emperor was returned
\nto power by a safe majority.
\nThe swearing-in ceremony was broadcast
\nso the nation could see a proud man
\nbuilding on his past, wearing cloth
\nto cover his nipples, cock and arse:
\nthin strips of some pale fabric
\nso pure, so delicate, it could almost
\nhave been the skin of a child.<\/p>\n

Joel Lane<\/em><\/p>\n

Every year the selectors for the Forward Prizes ask The Rialto <\/em>for nominations. We are allowed to enter four poems for the Best Single Poem award. This is hard work for me as in my opinion pretty much every poem in the magazine is a winner. But I would say that wouldn\u2019t I.<\/p>\n

One of the poems I entered this year is \u2018The Mandate\u2019 by Joel Lane, from issue 64 (page 13).<\/p>\n

Why this poem?<\/h4>\n

Ideally a poem is a perfect balance between the thing said and the way of saying it \u2013 content and technique. Sometimes it is the \u2018how it is said\u2019 of a poem that nudges into the foreground. In issue 64, for example there\u2019s the technical neatness of the sonnets by Christina Dunhill and Sebastian Barker, the tidiness of Angela Kirby\u2019s couplets in \u2018Beech Hill\u2019, or Hannah Sullivan\u2019s rhymes and half rhymes in \u2018Vermont\u2019. In other poems it\u2019s the content, the \u2018what the poem says\u2019 that I notice most.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Mandate\u2019 is rich in content. It reminds us just how wicked political leaders can be, just how wicked humankind is. It\u2019s a brutal poem, very direct. Its politics are of the moment \u2013 there are plenty of tyrants about, some of them \u2018democratically elected\u2019- and they are also the politics of the Twentieth Century. I remember reading as a child of lampshades being made of human skin in Germany in the 1940s. This was probably an article in the News Of The World<\/em>, the preferred reading of Aunty Denny, who wasn\u2019t an aunt but a depressed woman who worked in the same shop as my mother and who for a while came to our house every Sunday for her lunch. She would sit on what we called the settee reading her paper while the cooking was going on, and I would sit at her feet reading the back pages and getting an education.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the history that you, as reader, bring to a poem, what it evokes in you, is important in considering its effectiveness. I guess I need to confess in the context of this poem that I was always, still am, nervous of Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s fables \u2013 they have, for me, a special sugary darkness.<\/p>\n

So here is this poem, in two sections \u2013 fourteen lines and nine lines (a measured first part and a rolling, quicker, finale). The opening, \u2018first ripple,\u2019 is slightly journalistic, but this is appropriate in the context, the poem is, essentially, a news report. The second line shocks \u2013 we move from \u2018laughter\u2019 to \u2018struck the air like a window breaking\u2019. \u2018Breaking\u2019 sounds the destructive note that is the poem\u2019s theme: it\u2019s echoed in the last line of this section \u2018bottles were smashed\u2019 (again glass). Also, our expectations are broken \u2013 the original story is turned on its head: and innocence is also shattered, the boy is \u2018dumbstruck\u2019. (The point of the original tale is that it\u2019s the boy who is allowed to put into words what everyone is seeing and thinking). Joel\u2019s Emperor is far from Andersen\u2019s fop \u2013 he has the true power of tyranny, when he speaks, everyone listens.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m impressed by the unobtrusive use of poetry techniques \u2013 the poem is helped along by the use of rhymes and half rhymes \u2013 in the first part \u2018air\u2019 \u2018bare\u2019 \u2018tear,\u2019 and in the second section \u2018swearing-in\u2019, \u2018thin\u2019, \u2018skin\u2019. I read a lot of poems that are larded with alliteration: here the repetitions of \u2018s\u2019 in line 14 are deft and effective. And look how the rhythm is slowed in lines 17, 18, 19, (the long vowels), effectively emphasizing the pomposity, lulling the ear before the shock of \u2018nipples, cock and arse\u2019 (short vowels) (brief words). And it\u2019s neat, too, to have the word \u2018almost\u2019 hanging at the end of the penultimate line, so you get a little pause before the body blow of \u2018\u2026have been the skin of a child\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shocking poem, a poem for our ruthless times, and one that is skilfully written.<\/p>\n

My second choice, if I had to make one, would be Judith Taylor\u2019s superb poem \u2018Islands\u2019 (page 18). It\u2019s a six stanza poem, beautifully hinged around the word \u2018paper\u2019. The key word, though it\u2019s only there three times, is \u2018slow\u2019. There\u2019s a calm pace to the whole poem, like waves languorously curling onto a summer shore, brilliantly evoked by long vowel sounds. More great writing inThe Rialto<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Michael Mackmin, May 2008<\/em><\/p>\n

JOEL LANE<\/strong> is the author of two books of poems, The Edge Of The Screen <\/em>and Trouble In The<\/em> Heartland<\/em>, both published by Arc publications<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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