“Lunch at the Elephant and Castle” by Katrina Naomi
published 2008 by Templar Poetry
UK price £4.00
www.templarpoetry.co.uk
This gorgeously designed pamphlet from Templar belies the wicked nature of Lunch at the Elephant and Castle, which, like the best nights out, is packed with blonde women and alcohol.
Reading the opening poem, ‘Tunnel of Love’, I was struck by how some of the particularly sleazy details (“I sat on his lap./ My neat, white pencil skirt,/ tight as a condom”) reminded me of elements of Tracey Emin’s childhood in her autobiography, Strangeland. One would hope that not all girls growing up in Margate lose their virginities on a fairground ride, or on the pier, to a youth on a “shag break”, with his “hormones masked by Brut,/ £1.99 from the precinct”.
Like Emin’s artwork, Naomi’s writing can lack subtlety. Certain closing lines seem to cheapen otherwise intriguing poems. For example ‘The Håmeflost Mittens’ contains beautiful phrases (such as “Like two battered beaver wings/ the mittens sag”) but feels clumsily ended:
I don’t tell my city friends this,
or of the call of the north.
I felt similarly about the slightly bewildering ‘Fightback’, which focuses on the rape of a 17-year-old boy, and peters out with:
You’re not fucking worth it anyway.
I’ve set out to prove just how wrong he was.
Where Naomi excels, however, is in her cinematic ability to create a believable scene. In her strongest poems the quality of writing is maintained right through to the end. I relished ‘B Movie’ (which stars one of many blonde characters) and its faux-glamorous leading lady, whom I could imagine peering from a café window like an Edward Hopper muse:
You’ll smoke at all hours:
first thing in your silk camisole,
4am in your fox fur.
And I was delighted to find that this poem ended with some weight behind it:
You know you’ll live
in a series of apartments,
each less elaborate than the last.
Another wonderfully atmospheric moment was ‘Learning to Love Beer’, my favourite piece in the book. Set in her grandparents’ lounge, testing grotty glasses of home-brew, the poem is nostalgic but unsentimental, whilst reminding us why making our own beer has gone out of fashion! Delightfully grimy details include, “filthy oceans of yeast” and “a brown film/ of nearly-beer”. The poet’s affection for her grandfather is poignantly demonstrated:
I’d only drink in the shed with Pa,
at first, the froth lining his clipped naval moustache,
the scummed tide bursting on the bridge of my nose.
Where Naomi is able to lose herself in a scene, as in these poems, she draws the reader into a world as grimy yet glitzy as the lights of Margate pier.
All content ©2009 Lizzy Dening
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