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foggy_rosamund's review
4.0
I've been carrying this book around with me since I got it -- it asks to be read and reread. Though the imagery in these poems is immediately gripping, they are full of ideas and contradictions: I wanted to spend time with them to fully appreciate their scope. Padraig Regan is concerned with contradictions: how we view ourselves compared to how we are perceived; how we struggle to understand ourselves. They ask these question through the lens of paintings and fine art.
The longest poem in this pamphlet, Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real is a study of Caravaggio's pictures of Mario Minniti. Caravaggio painted Minniti in many different aspects and guises - as a boy bitten by a lizard, as a lute player, as one of a group of musicians. Minniti is asked to be many different personalities, and when we, the viewer of the painting, see him, we bring different expectations to each of his different guises. Regan uses this study of Minniti to show the reader how perceptions vary, how the slightest change to a portrait can alter our whole experience of the piece. It seemed to me that Regan was also asking us to travel further: to understand that we never fully know how we are perceived by others, or that our own perception of other people is always influenced by a number of factors.
But these poems are also full of joy: they are a meditation on the beauty and variety of Caravaggio's art, and Regan uses lush and compelling language to evoke these paintings. Describing fruit, Regan says, "The pomegranate can't wait to escape itself. / The leaves turned patched & lacy." A lizard is "dangling like a catkin from a middle finger." They capture the frustration of the artist's model, how Minniti wants to throw "each of the overripe fruits in the basket / at the young painter: pears exploding against his cranium". The artifice of art is also explored, how Minniti "swayed like a mast // all his joints protested." Regan captures the frustration that goes into the artist creating a perfect moment. For me, this evoked not just the old masters but modern culture, and how we become more focused on capturing a moment on camera than living in one.
The other poems in this pamphlet explore similar themes in a variety of different contexts. Regan's language is always compelling: in the first poem, Glory they allow the reader to wallow in the bath, describing the body "cooked & turning / pink, scented with chamomile and sea-herbs." The body seems both something separate from the self and something to cherish -- a feeling that is not a contradiction, but something I never see explored in any writing. The poems are full of longing -- the vegetarian's desire for meat, in Viande -- "the browned edges, the centre the colour of porphyry, / the blood pooling like an accidental sauce", or sensual longing in Rose Garden with Men -- "His arms were trunks of vein & sinew; / he leaned in perfect contrapposto."
The reader is constantly drawn in by the aesthetic beauty of the poems, and then left to question themselves, wondering what it is about that beauty that attracts them in the first place. There's a decadence to the language, and yet we were wonder what decadence is, what makes a poem or a painting pleasing. The last poem, also called Glory ends with the wonderful line, "I need furs & pearls & a glass of sweet Prosecco." -- an utterly glorious list of words and completely compelling for the reader. Regan draws us into their world again and again, and yet constantly pulls the rug out from under us. Reading their work is a compelling, decadent experience, full of surprises, and I highly recommend it.
The longest poem in this pamphlet, Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real is a study of Caravaggio's pictures of Mario Minniti. Caravaggio painted Minniti in many different aspects and guises - as a boy bitten by a lizard, as a lute player, as one of a group of musicians. Minniti is asked to be many different personalities, and when we, the viewer of the painting, see him, we bring different expectations to each of his different guises. Regan uses this study of Minniti to show the reader how perceptions vary, how the slightest change to a portrait can alter our whole experience of the piece. It seemed to me that Regan was also asking us to travel further: to understand that we never fully know how we are perceived by others, or that our own perception of other people is always influenced by a number of factors.
But these poems are also full of joy: they are a meditation on the beauty and variety of Caravaggio's art, and Regan uses lush and compelling language to evoke these paintings. Describing fruit, Regan says, "The pomegranate can't wait to escape itself. / The leaves turned patched & lacy." A lizard is "dangling like a catkin from a middle finger." They capture the frustration of the artist's model, how Minniti wants to throw "each of the overripe fruits in the basket / at the young painter: pears exploding against his cranium". The artifice of art is also explored, how Minniti "swayed like a mast // all his joints protested." Regan captures the frustration that goes into the artist creating a perfect moment. For me, this evoked not just the old masters but modern culture, and how we become more focused on capturing a moment on camera than living in one.
The other poems in this pamphlet explore similar themes in a variety of different contexts. Regan's language is always compelling: in the first poem, Glory they allow the reader to wallow in the bath, describing the body "cooked & turning / pink, scented with chamomile and sea-herbs." The body seems both something separate from the self and something to cherish -- a feeling that is not a contradiction, but something I never see explored in any writing. The poems are full of longing -- the vegetarian's desire for meat, in Viande -- "the browned edges, the centre the colour of porphyry, / the blood pooling like an accidental sauce", or sensual longing in Rose Garden with Men -- "His arms were trunks of vein & sinew; / he leaned in perfect contrapposto."
The reader is constantly drawn in by the aesthetic beauty of the poems, and then left to question themselves, wondering what it is about that beauty that attracts them in the first place. There's a decadence to the language, and yet we were wonder what decadence is, what makes a poem or a painting pleasing. The last poem, also called Glory ends with the wonderful line, "I need furs & pearls & a glass of sweet Prosecco." -- an utterly glorious list of words and completely compelling for the reader. Regan draws us into their world again and again, and yet constantly pulls the rug out from under us. Reading their work is a compelling, decadent experience, full of surprises, and I highly recommend it.
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