I think we are alone now by Abigail Parry

Elizabeth

I will not write you an intelligent analysis of this book, as I am not capable of doing so, but I will tell you all about how much I like it. I Really like this book, actually.

I like books full of serious but also silly things. And I like books full of strange but also human things, and this book has a lot of them.

Sometimes I don’t understand the poems, but that’s okay. It doesn’t reflect well on me, on the poems, or on the poet – but, I tell myself reassuringly as I scratch my head, that’s the goal of all good poems, isn’t it?

Challenge yourself. Make you ask questions. Make you go deeper into the words, into yourself.

I heard some of these poems recited live for the first time before reading them. At the launch of Taz Rahman’s debut collection and then at Tiger Bay Poetry just a few weeks later, I was captivated by Parry.

I thought she was super cool, the relaxed way she recited poems that were thought-provoking and funny, otherworldly, scientific and yet so human.

Craft

I believe Abigail Parry worked as a toy maker in a previous life, and I can almost imagine her writing these poems in exactly the same way.

With delicate hands that act as tools, with care and mechanical meticulousness and the end result is poems that you want to take apart by their screws and hinges – poems to play with, poems that play with You.

It is the lark that sings so wrong

The days that come and go
like dull beads on a joyless abacus.

This is a book about intimacy (or the lack of it), about our many flaws as human beings… flaws in connection, in relationships, and in language. It’s also about bugs and pop music and churches and swab tests. But not really.

Abigail Parry takes a sample of humanity, mixes it in her petri dish, then puts on her goggles and looks at it under the microscope. And aha! There you go, folks. She presents her results with seriousness and ridiculousness.

Life is chaotic. People are chaotic. But these poems are anything but that.

In the dream of the cold restaurant

She will raze this city to the ground before
She takes away your plate, not to mention your pity.

The compilation of this collection is surgical in its precision and observations.

Care

Every poem, every word, every line has been treated with so much care, and I, a poet who throws words around carelessly, who doesn’t spend too much time on them, paying attention to whether they have an impact or not (I’m lazy), really admire that about AP.

The book is relentless in its pursuit of analysis of the everyday. I wish I could write something like that. Maybe at another reading I’ll ask AP how she does it, and ask her about her poetic brain. And then I’ll realize I’m not capable of such a craft.

“Some Remarks on General Relativity” is my favorite poem in the collection. It’s beautiful and remarkable and simple and complex and human and lovely. I think it’s an attempt to portray the ridiculousness and sadness of our existence on Earth.

How we all live side by side on this vast planet, living our lives without even being aware of each other. It’s sad and heartbreaking and lonely, but real. It embodies our lack of intimacy as human beings.

How we are all alike, like duplicate creations, how our lives run parallel and (depressingly) repetitive, how we experience the same things, the same monotony of life, how we wash dishes, put things in and out of the same cupboards, how we deal with the same emotions, tragedies and setbacks… but there are walls between us.

Metaphorically and physically. If only we could reach out… touch.

she hears this quiet noise. She hears me coughing at night.
She sometimes hears me talking on the phone,
She thought These walls are thin.
She looked up from her sink and saw her twin
in a square of yellow kitchen light, with ten dark feet in between.
We are lonely, but we are not alone.

If I think we are alone now A Welsh Book of the Year award would be a fitting reward for such an important work.

This book stays in your mind long after you’ve finished reading it. Just like the bloody song in the title. Thank you for that.

I think we are alone now by Abigail Parry is published by Bloodaxe Books and is available in all good bookstores.