‘Exactly what I am saying is’
Matthew Welton, The Number Poems
Carcanet, 96pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781784102203
reviewed by Holly Isemonger
Jeffrey Wainwright writes that the central paradox of poetry results from two conflicting desires: the desire to ‘say something meaningful and memorable’ and the desire to say nothing and simply delight in the nature of language itself. This issue is at the heart of Matthew Welton’s praxis, and his latest collection uses experimental techniques coupled with more conventionally meaningful elements of lyric poetry to engage with this poetic contradiction. Welton is certainly not the first person to adopt these strategies, yet what he has created is something truly original and sorely lacking from mainstream contemporary poetry. The Number Poems maintains the distinctive palette (e.g. coffee, colours, sunlight, breezes, fruit) and musical qualities of his previous collections but expands on their procedural methods in a more explicit fashion, though his experimental approaches never feel cold or cerebral. Some Oulipian poets and certain strands of contemporary conceptualism value structure and procedure over the evocation of sensory experience. Conversely Welton is wary of formal abstraction and careful to counteract it with features of lyric poetry, such as the cultivation of musical qualities, the poems’ subjective character and their short anecdotal nature. Although The Number Poems is built upon precise systems and rules, Welton is careful never to foreground them to the point where they become the main event of the poem, and each poem (or section) stands on its own even when isolated from the larger sequence or procedure. This collection is special because it feels so carefully oriented to its audience’s various experience. Its many pleasures lie in its humour, formal invention, interest in sound, strange narratives and rich sensual descriptions.
Three of the most intriguing poems in the collection are ‘Construction with phrases’, ‘Construction with stencil’ and ‘Construction on six principles’. Each poem has six sections and uses accentual-syballic metre: twelve syllables to each of its twelve lines. ‘Construction with stencil’ maintains a rhythmic structural framework while the details of each section change:
The repetition of ‘exactly’ and ‘I’m saying’ evokes the problem of explaining the meaning of a poem, or more generally the problem of communicating with language. There is no way to truly describe what a poem ‘says’; the poem is the description, the explication and the meaning. The writing process in ‘Construction with stencils’ is suggested in the title; a framework is repeated in each section (bar one) while particular words are changed. The reader is encouraged to unpick the poem and discover its machinations, as the reader moves through the rearranged and repeated structures finding recurring words and objects, and, in doing so, a strange process occurs. The mind mingles with the processes at play on the page, perhaps best described in the swirling motion of ‘The zesty underdressed kid wants to ruck and run / and sets off at a wander round the yonder round / the pond around the middle of the middle of // the middle of my mind.’
Throughout the collection there is a dedication to reading and thinking, and how the two interact and create meaning. Welton encourages the reader to participate in this process by subverting the speaking position of the traditional lyric poem (in which the ‘I’ is usually treated as the deictic centre of the poem and the reader encounters a fully formed authorial vision that s/he must espouse). In The Number Poems the first person is rarely used and when it is the ‘I’ operates as a space that the reader can step into. The speaker in Welton’s poems doesn’t harken back to a lost time in the past that the author is privy to but the reader is not, instead the reader is invited to explore the sensory- and linguistic-based playground that Welton has built. At first glance a poem like ‘Hey Hey’ may appear like a more traditional lyric but it operates like a thought experiment, asking the reader to think of multiple disparate things like a rubber ball, telephone talk, gloopy coffee and a lemon. In the surrealist sense, the reader brings two things together in their mind’s eye, which triggers an almost unconscious sense-making process that nonetheless seems to be capable of forming a significant link between them every time. Similarly, ‘Under Jack Wood’ is a wide-ranging catalogue of things that have ‘disappeared’ (which Welton notes is composed from the words of the 2011 Summer edition of Bookforum) although it never feels like a mere series of non-sequiturs – Welton’s dedication to rhythm (and its implied relation to humour) gives all of his poems a certain tautness that make them sing. ‘Twelve Deflections’ is a clear standout in the collection. The ‘deflections’ or stanzas are a variation on the haiku with twelve syllables. Each one feels like a still from a film with the eerie feeling of movement pressing in from surrounding scenes.
In a recent interview with Alex MacDonald, Welton described the dominant lyric idiom as ‘I was doing something and then something happened’. The burden of having to make this event signify something momentous can make the poem seem like it’s straining for transcendence and as a reader that can feel hectoring or untruthful. The poems in this collection don't rely on ‘something happening’ and instead offer the reader a wide range of pleasures, which the reader can enjoy again and again. Each time I returned to The Number Poems I discovered something new. Welton’s poems demonstrate how generative processes can produce texts that ‘say something’ (though not necessarily something paraphrasable) in an original and meaningful way. This collection feels like a true reflection of our relationship to language in the present day. In the digital era language has become more transmutable; it is a material that we can copy, paste, rearrange or translate on a whim. Welton’s poetry reflects this, but never loses sight of language’s original purpose: to communicate. I hope that Welton gains the wider notoriety that he deserves, and that one day in schools kids might learn ‘Construction with stencils’ by heart instead of another poem by Robert Frost, John Keats, Ted Hughes et. al. In the The Number Poems, Welton combines formal rigour, intellectual generosity and an inquisitive, playful nature to make a truly contemporary lyric.
Three of the most intriguing poems in the collection are ‘Construction with phrases’, ‘Construction with stencil’ and ‘Construction on six principles’. Each poem has six sections and uses accentual-syballic metre: twelve syllables to each of its twelve lines. ‘Construction with stencil’ maintains a rhythmic structural framework while the details of each section change:
Exactly as I’m saying it, the sunset comes
and, with it, something analgesic mists my mind.
The freckled flies speckle the skies; the blackberries blush;
[…]
Exactly what I’m saying is: the sunset comes,
And, in it, something anesthetic mutes my mind.
The flock of flies doubles in size; the blackberries bloom.
[…]
Exactly, that I’m saying that the sunset comes
means something mostly anaphoric minds my mind.
The feisty flies philosophise on if and how
The repetition of ‘exactly’ and ‘I’m saying’ evokes the problem of explaining the meaning of a poem, or more generally the problem of communicating with language. There is no way to truly describe what a poem ‘says’; the poem is the description, the explication and the meaning. The writing process in ‘Construction with stencils’ is suggested in the title; a framework is repeated in each section (bar one) while particular words are changed. The reader is encouraged to unpick the poem and discover its machinations, as the reader moves through the rearranged and repeated structures finding recurring words and objects, and, in doing so, a strange process occurs. The mind mingles with the processes at play on the page, perhaps best described in the swirling motion of ‘The zesty underdressed kid wants to ruck and run / and sets off at a wander round the yonder round / the pond around the middle of the middle of // the middle of my mind.’
Throughout the collection there is a dedication to reading and thinking, and how the two interact and create meaning. Welton encourages the reader to participate in this process by subverting the speaking position of the traditional lyric poem (in which the ‘I’ is usually treated as the deictic centre of the poem and the reader encounters a fully formed authorial vision that s/he must espouse). In The Number Poems the first person is rarely used and when it is the ‘I’ operates as a space that the reader can step into. The speaker in Welton’s poems doesn’t harken back to a lost time in the past that the author is privy to but the reader is not, instead the reader is invited to explore the sensory- and linguistic-based playground that Welton has built. At first glance a poem like ‘Hey Hey’ may appear like a more traditional lyric but it operates like a thought experiment, asking the reader to think of multiple disparate things like a rubber ball, telephone talk, gloopy coffee and a lemon. In the surrealist sense, the reader brings two things together in their mind’s eye, which triggers an almost unconscious sense-making process that nonetheless seems to be capable of forming a significant link between them every time. Similarly, ‘Under Jack Wood’ is a wide-ranging catalogue of things that have ‘disappeared’ (which Welton notes is composed from the words of the 2011 Summer edition of Bookforum) although it never feels like a mere series of non-sequiturs – Welton’s dedication to rhythm (and its implied relation to humour) gives all of his poems a certain tautness that make them sing. ‘Twelve Deflections’ is a clear standout in the collection. The ‘deflections’ or stanzas are a variation on the haiku with twelve syllables. Each one feels like a still from a film with the eerie feeling of movement pressing in from surrounding scenes.
In a recent interview with Alex MacDonald, Welton described the dominant lyric idiom as ‘I was doing something and then something happened’. The burden of having to make this event signify something momentous can make the poem seem like it’s straining for transcendence and as a reader that can feel hectoring or untruthful. The poems in this collection don't rely on ‘something happening’ and instead offer the reader a wide range of pleasures, which the reader can enjoy again and again. Each time I returned to The Number Poems I discovered something new. Welton’s poems demonstrate how generative processes can produce texts that ‘say something’ (though not necessarily something paraphrasable) in an original and meaningful way. This collection feels like a true reflection of our relationship to language in the present day. In the digital era language has become more transmutable; it is a material that we can copy, paste, rearrange or translate on a whim. Welton’s poetry reflects this, but never loses sight of language’s original purpose: to communicate. I hope that Welton gains the wider notoriety that he deserves, and that one day in schools kids might learn ‘Construction with stencils’ by heart instead of another poem by Robert Frost, John Keats, Ted Hughes et. al. In the The Number Poems, Welton combines formal rigour, intellectual generosity and an inquisitive, playful nature to make a truly contemporary lyric.