Ian Royce Chamberlain
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Before poetry, Ian was an automotive engineer. Precision was everything – high performance machines must be assembled perfectly. Poetry, he says, demands the same approach: every component must be carefully selected and slotted into place, every line tuned until it runs exactly as it should. And the ultimate test – if it sounds right, it is right.
Ian’s latest publication is an illustrated pamphlet from Mudlark Press, Not Forgotten / Nicht Vergessen. Earlier work has appeared in many anthologies in addition to two full collections, stumble into grace (Wylde, 2012) and Vertigo & Beeswax (Oversteps, 2017). To buy Ian’s books email [email protected] or call 07854 418295. Each book costs less direct from Ian than from shops or on-line suppliers: £6 + £1.60 p&p within UK. |
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Poetic Range
While Not Forgotten focuses on a single tragic shipwreck, Ian’s poetry more often reflects his close observation of the Living World. But his writing can be spiky and controversial too, specially in the many poems about relationships and the minefield of being an older male in the 21st century. The poem below, The Blacksmith, will open his new collection, anticipated in 2022. It documents the switch – made twenty years earlier – from an intensely practical craft to that of being a poet.
While Not Forgotten focuses on a single tragic shipwreck, Ian’s poetry more often reflects his close observation of the Living World. But his writing can be spiky and controversial too, specially in the many poems about relationships and the minefield of being an older male in the 21st century. The poem below, The Blacksmith, will open his new collection, anticipated in 2022. It documents the switch – made twenty years earlier – from an intensely practical craft to that of being a poet.
The Blacksmith
His biceps have lost their sheen.
There’s a crust on the last fire’s ash
and a dusting of web has begun
between anvil and tongs. No ringing
of hammer flings back from the walls
and the long-handled grippers, the mandrels
and blanks, his aprons and gauntlets
and stamps have the look of exhibits.
If this is museum it is not of the forge
but the smith. It is time to curate his mistakes,
to restore while he can: the shackles he clamped,
the welding misplaced, the couplings
so roughly uncoupled. Alone with his days
he works at a craft less loud.
*
From a clutter of backroom store,
his fifty years of afterthought emerge,
present themselves pre-formed
and ready for assembly into sentences,
cold-forged and raw, not fired but chilled
in the pumped pressure feed of regret.
Old skills persist – the lines he scribes
are measured, clearly punctuated:
full stops black as sparks shot into leather,
question marks – so many question marks –
inverted commas pegged up to remind him
who’d said what, and when. Even now
the floor is clinkered with ellipses
for the missing and the might-have-been.
© Ian Royce Chamberlain, 2021
[email protected]
His biceps have lost their sheen.
There’s a crust on the last fire’s ash
and a dusting of web has begun
between anvil and tongs. No ringing
of hammer flings back from the walls
and the long-handled grippers, the mandrels
and blanks, his aprons and gauntlets
and stamps have the look of exhibits.
If this is museum it is not of the forge
but the smith. It is time to curate his mistakes,
to restore while he can: the shackles he clamped,
the welding misplaced, the couplings
so roughly uncoupled. Alone with his days
he works at a craft less loud.
*
From a clutter of backroom store,
his fifty years of afterthought emerge,
present themselves pre-formed
and ready for assembly into sentences,
cold-forged and raw, not fired but chilled
in the pumped pressure feed of regret.
Old skills persist – the lines he scribes
are measured, clearly punctuated:
full stops black as sparks shot into leather,
question marks – so many question marks –
inverted commas pegged up to remind him
who’d said what, and when. Even now
the floor is clinkered with ellipses
for the missing and the might-have-been.
© Ian Royce Chamberlain, 2021
[email protected]