Tim
Cresswell, Soil, London: Penned in the Margins, 2013/2020 (£9.99,
paperback, ISBN:978-1-908058-15-7)
Tim
Cresswell, Fence, London: Penned in the Margins,
2015/2020 (£9.99, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-908058-31-7).
Tim
Cresswell, Plastiglomerate, Penned in the Margins, 2015/2020 (£9.99,
paperback, ISBN: 978-1-908058-76-8).
Reviewer: Rodanthi
Tzanelli
The
idea that a neatly organised volume of rhymed ideas mushrooms out of nowhere
betrays an ill-informed view on the ways poets arrive at a beautiful and/or
politically informed product. Likewise, the claim that poets manufacture well-organised
‘trilogies’ without a great deal of a posteriori engineering – both in terms of
self-narration and promotion – projects a flat picture of works with a deep passion
for language and ideas. Works of passion are uneven and occasionally also
contingent results of one’s craft, regardless of the mentorship one enjoys to
perfect what one does. I find that this is the case with Tim Cresswell’s
self-proclaimed trilogy ‘Earthworks’: the product of a beautifully crafted, but
also often uneven, labour of love that developed across a decade, each of the
three books (Soil, 2013; Fence, 2015; and Plastiglomerate,
2020) is self-standing, both stylistically and conceptually.
This
is not an accusation – had this been the case, the reviewer would have acted in
bad faith, given her recently published trilogy (the production of whose poems dates
as far back as the late 1990s). Rather, it is an observation on the
manifestation of a common structure in presenting poetic ideas in
published form, behind which uniqueness and an unconfessed commitment to
particular idea(l)s hide. To properly review Cresswell’s work I would need more
space than I have here. As a compromise, I endeavour to provide some vignettes
from his three books, which I consider significant, if one wants to unearth
both commonalities and unconfessed commitments (an arc or series of arcs).
Cresswell has consistently received praise for his work, in which his “scientific
eye” is stressed somehow disproportionally over his sentimental and
aesthetic/emotional moments. Resorting to such typifications is both understandable
(he is a well-known geographer in academia) and not entirely accurate. It is
possible that because we belong to the same international and interdisciplinary
network of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ I can provide an alternative look into
his work.
I do
not see his books as a trilogy, but an intricate referential web in which we
find the effects of modern human behaviour on society and natural life.
Cresswell is a humanist at heart (he is a declared disciple of the late
humanist geographer Y.F. Tuan), so even when his writing focuses on pollution
(as is the case in the Plastiglomerate), he is reluctant to decentre the
human voice from his poetic scenario. The rare appearance of anti-humanist
philosophical voices such as Foucault in Soil begins with an abstract
analysis of soil-land-territory only to progress to an intimate discussion with
“mother” (possibly a metaphor for earth or land?). Therefore, we are back to
interrogating the place of humans in the new scientific principles of abstraction.
Humans also constantly travel the high Arctic in search of meaning and
belonging where boundaries and borders divide and define:
“This
fence:
metal
posts mark out empty intervals
post space
post space post
space
borders boundaries beating the bounds
once
a year: post post
post […]
chainlengths poles
planks beams barbed wire electric
rips
and zaps snagged clothes snarls of wood on nails […]”
If
not a trilogy, then what? Let me try to walk you through a few signposts
scattered across the three books to highlight their hidden arc-plot(s): speaking
of water consumption in “A Glass of Water” in Soil announces the
appearance of several human actors, who drink several pints of it – “they say
my body is sixty percent this”, one of them says. “I thought of France/my
family/my friends/the fine sky”, and again, “when I was far from home/when/I
was north/when/I had grown accustomed to blue sky […] I stumbled in with my
cameras and calamity”, he proclaims in Fence
(xxxv), despite the book’s fascination with the exotic border. “I can’t
breathe”, he says, when “Alice” turns up in “Tremor” in Plastiglomerate
with nails painted in different colours, “each one a flag that means/something
to her”. The human narrator asphyxiates in these snapshots and feels alienated by
the fast pace of social change – note that this is the work of one of the
leading names in the new mobilities paradigm. Often non-human species assume in
his writing anthropomorphic qualities, or, otherwise, the poet assumes the role
of an observer of their fortunes in the Anthropocene, often from afar:
“Here
come the helicopters
The
cameramen, clamouring
For
coverage, risking a stampede.
The
walruses hunker down
Waiting
for a freeze-up.” (“Haul Out”, Plastiglomerate)
It
is not always clear whether Cresswell is a virtual traveller or a presenter of
real experiences he has collected during his actual journeys. I respect the
preservation of this ambiguity as the sign of a successful staging of events. However,
the same ambiguity generates a stark contrast in his poetry between his horror
towards cultures of speed and his composed use of technologies associated with
such cultures to craft stories. I have used this technique deliberately myself,
and I wonder to what extent it is a conscious occurrence in his work. I
received no actual response to the question I recently asked him on whether he
is a magical realist (a theme I spotted in his use of folk myth to weave ideas
of transformation in Soil and Plastiglomerate) and wonder whether
this is an unconscious trend too. These dispositions work towards one end,
which, in my opinion is both magical and poignant.
To
me, Cresswell’s ‘trilogy’ presents an alternative narrative of nostalgia, which
he prefers to camouflage as an “out of place” poetics of place (a theme in his
academic work). If humanist Y.F. Tuan and literary/social theorist Walter
Benjamin are among his favourite intellectuals, “Alice” is not in his fictional
world. If there is a trace of the “scientific gaze” in his poetry, it is mostly
cast upon the ways new age humans behave: they both fascinate him and amplify
feelings of uncertainty about the future in some of his poems. When he speaks
about transformations in his adaptation of Tam Lin in “Turn” (Soil), I
have the feeling that he conveys through erotic and somatosensory language
visceral encounters with the unknown, as well as the limits of human
articulation of the massive: pollution, social breakdown, and “homelessness”.
His affective style is more present and more effective in “Turn” and The “Two
Magicians” (Plastiglomerate) than in his shorter poems, such as “A
Theory of Migration” (Plastiglomerate), or “Disappointment” (Soil),
which have the form (again, intentionally, I suspect) of dry PowerPoint
presentations to convey rationalisation and alienation.
I
bought all three books to read them carefully in my spare time, hoping that
they will be as interesting as the academic work that Creswell does. I found
their themes strangely familiar but also uncanny in their atmospheric
presentation. Cresswell is a good stylist, but also a polemicist when it comes
to questions of politics. His poetry revealed a different side, more nuanced in
its regard and possibly also more in line with the great critical analysts of
modernity. Without suggesting “pomophobia”, Cresswell is closer to modernist
trends. I am not sure whether this work would appeal to the young generations
of poets, mainly because its sober and at times elegiac tone transcends
individual concerns that rightly occupy more space among the younger creative voices.
It is, however, delightful to ponder for anyone interested in subtle critique
and the dark side of hope in an age of uncertainty.
