Published in Plumwood Mountain Journal
http://plumwoodmountain.com/helen-hagemann-reviews-final-theory-by-bonny-cassidy/
Bonny
Cassidy, Final Theory. Artarmon, New South Wales: Giramondo, 2014. ISBN
978-1-922146-61-8
Helen
Hagemann
Theories
have been around for centuries. It was first thought that the world was flat,
until Galileo proved the Copernican theory that the earth did actually revolve
around the sun. Recently I purchased nail polish called Color Theory, and per
se, was offered Bonny Cassidy’s latest collection titled Final Theory. In this
work of free verse two main stories are evoked, but more importantly the poetry
centres on the theory of “finalities”. Theory. There are several meanings to
the word: abstract reasoning, speculation, an assumption based on limited
information, a belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension
or judgement, even the branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory
statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to
practice. Head spinning!
Well, this
is how I felt after reading Final Theory.
The
collection is divided into four parts and appears as four distinct narratives,
each separate page without a title. Before outlining the content of this poetry,
it is important to understand that the disastrous worlds that Cassidy captures
in these episodes are written from an interrogative stance. It is certainly not
lyric poetry, but more post-avant. As Adam Fieled (2006) writes “post-avant
poetry is distinguished from other forms of ‘po-mo’ by its deliberate shying
away from the directly ‘personal’, as well as its engagement with ‘morally
motivated abstraction’”.
Did I write
abstraction? Yes. Most of this collection is fairly abstract. However, it is
for a reason. The post-avant poet’s main aim is to avoid the lyric “I” and as
Fieled (2006) writes, “the poet employs ‘Negative Capability’ to express
contradictions and oppositions, harmonies and discords, without affixing his or
her identity to any fixed locale”. We do know however, after several readings
of each section, that Cassidy’s finalities (harmonies and discords) exist
somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, in New Zealand, Tasmania, Antarctica, and
possibly the ancient Gondwana. (This information is gleaned from Cassidy
receiving a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship and her trips to these
areas).
It is
tempting to delve deeper into this collection in order to understand the
literal level of the poetry. However, in the light of the above that we are
dealing with post-avant poetry, this is not possible. Instead, I am tackling
this review by looking at each of the four sections in terms of binaries.
They are:
birth / death – aesthetic / catastrophic – factual / mythical, with varying
rhizomes.
In the
foreword, these images set the tone for what is to come:
A camera tracks the ocean floor
(eating images, not colliding). And rests.
…
A child plunges headlong into that valley
scuttling crud.
The camera is her dream tunnel. …
(1)
On the
previous page, there is a quote from Lionel Fogarty’s “Scenic Wonders – We
Nulla Fellas”: “Ranges and countless channels uninhabited’ /… ‘cones / knives,
volcanoes borning a surface external / wave, rock over arid plains are not far
from our base.” From Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen’s, How The Universe Will End,
this quote appears: “Nothing happens, and it keeps not happening forever… on
the long road from order to disorder.” Now we have some inkling of where this
is going!
In Section
1, expect to be transported to the aftermath of New Zealand’s earthquake in the
south island, possibly Christchurch and its surrounds.
Bucking
under
distant melt
[…]
an envelope of land
is opened and warm-skinned
cold-blooded ocean welling.
(14)
What is at
stake here is the morality / immorality binary of this catastrophe. The land
has been corrupted, as Cassidy writes, “see the little bastard coming to the
fray. / An inkling child of oil and grit” (14). Yet, the “day glows” and on
Steven’s Island the scene is inviolate:
… wren,
piopio, huia, saddleback, kokako,
short-tailed bat, long-tailed bat –
who opened a gap and thudded through,
back-first.
The place became
a host of wings, a fall of parrots. …
(16)
Section II
diverts from the disaster caused by nature and the ultimate survival of the
natural world. In some way we are carried forward (or is it back to Gondwana?)
to where in “some future ocean our beloved proteins will / roll, perhaps
finding one another, linked / by a theoretical wave” (18). At a guess, the
binary in this section is either “obliteration / creation”, “or birth / death.”
A child is involved and the poetry is mythical, strange, she comes:
face to face with a rubber alligator
then wheels, seeing
the alligator dissolve as she grows:
byproduct, polymer-spun
and grasping.
(21)
The setting
of the ocean with its water flowers and flushing weed is metaphorical. Cassidy
appears to re-create the child’s life as a life saved and lived in water. It’s
a slow letting go, but death is lengthened, perhaps not realised, until:
… they’ve clustered on a corpse she
snatches
at the crowd, fills her mouth, cancelling
their fuss
with her fried tongue.
But in the landscape of her head
one lives on …
(28)
Section III
introduces another landscape that hints of isolation but, more to the point, of
being slightly inhabited / uninhabitable: “try to make its faces out: they’re
deserted” (39).
Swerving from the valley’s head
pipes cascade silently
and divert
to a compound buried in slick white rock.
(43)
The two
people in the narrative, rather than being “in the detritus of the old
harbours” (6), are on “high ground” staring across a valley and in “one of the
cars some kids / amped their dying stereo / so it shone across the valley”
(39–40).
A biplane lifted from its beach and wiped
up light.
[…]
The lake rose, floating
on the valley
then deepened to a stop.
Sailing peaks.
(40)
In Section
IV, we return to the child / girl, although the “she” point-of-view of
water-baby or survivor is unclear. However, certain aspects of the binary of
factual / mythical are evident in this final poetry. The setting of caves, the
ocean, the rift of ice, and “on the surface: canisters, their reels of
punctured weed” (67), “the plastics she has loved” (66), appear as evidence to
the aftermath of a previous disaster or catastrophe. The “she” person in the
poetry also has an affinity with and appears to be floating in this fallible
landscape.
Rummaging the hadal scum
she rips white clams from their roots
and sifts with toothless gums.
(69)
We could
hardly believe that this character / child or super woman would be human,
surviving hours below the sea, being flung high to a cliff face, and then have
her “bellows grind through avenues of the last ice” (70). One supposes she is
likened to a mythical character, similar to the Greek sea-goddess Thetis who
had the power to change her shape at will.
Nose to sloppy ice
she gnaws –
a line draws itself
across her head
and silently folds
inward:
the thin zones inch
she rises
involuntary
(70–71)
Apart from
the obscure nature of this radical poetry, it must be mentioned that the work
has a foray of excellent poetic techniques: strong rhythm, imbibed tone,
powerful imagery, a picturesque view of the natural world, a motif of
photography (as real / made-up images) and unforgettable phrases such as: “to
understand why the ocean ends / here. Drinking from the teeth / of the cliff”
(25) and “down the rift / (past a rusted box, its long eye gazing into sludge)”
(67). Final Theory might not be for all, especially lovers of lyric poetry, but
for those who like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, post-modernist, experimental or post-avant
poetry, it’s a challenging read.
Reference
Helen
Hagemann is a Perth poet. She has two collections of poetry, Evangelyne &
other poems (APC, 2009) and of Arc & Shadow (Sunline Press, 2013).
Currently, Helen is working on a children’s collection titled Miniscule.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
