Carcanet Press - Nuncle Music

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Death is simple, after all

Death is simple, after all

(stabbing through the eyes for instance,

or nails pounded into the skull

in regular staccato over and over).

If a person’s to die, he’ll die anyway,

if a person’s to live, he’ll live anyway,

but I prefer to tiptoe,

a grotesque elephant dance.

In his dacha Club Foot

twitches an eyebrow,

and that’s it, you’re done for,

the little runt is dead.

I lead a charmed life: I live.

Some charm, some life.

‘You must not take me at my word, / you must take me at my lack of word, / you must take me at my music.’ In Nuncle Music, a sequence of monologues ‘spoken’ by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Gareth Reeves presents the psychodrama of an artist forced into the service of tyranny. Though the terror and intrigue of Soviet life haunt the poetry, acerbic wit and mischief are also here: Hamlet farts through a flute, Stalin plays the triangle, and up in space cosmonaut Gagarin sings a song by Shostakovich of ‘intergalactic platitudes’.

Barrie Ormsby’s drawings provide a vivid accompaniment to Reeves’ poems.

Revolution is the getting

Listen, I give you sound

I said I went to the Finland Station

The future, it will blow over

Muddle Instead of Music

These guts churn. The world goes out of focus

Wind-up people, we are all wound up

The circus is pure art

Hamlet farts through a flute

No toadstools?

An anthem, do me an anthem

The production of souls

The Nose: an anarchist’s hand bomb

One day a sparrow flew into my dacha

We are the masterpiece makers

The sky is dressed in a gendarme’s blue-grey trousers

I am possessed, the Boss’s pet

The Morning Greets Us with Coolness

Composers must master one instrument at least

One-ski, two-ski, three-ski

Devils, enemies of the people

We live in the dark

Death is simple, after all

You are hungry

Best not write anything big on days

The bigger the lie the more you’ll get the point

Thank you, everything is fine

I’m no Pasternak, no pig kicked

Look at that smile

Dim-witted workers of the ‘punitive organs’

Scotch the formalist snake

God walked in the Garden of Eden

What a disgusting

Do not contemplate the navel of art

Play it so that flies drop dead in mid-air

The Steel Man sings

Sergei Prokofiev is dead

Art is arrogant, it takes no hostages

The delicious word death, my foot

Art belongs to the people

Bloody Sunday?

Suddenly I am absolved

Let us sing a song

Deputy to the Supreme Soviet

Everyone wants to be clean

Gagarin sings my song in space

I have wept three times

An improvised life, what is that?

Pyotr Ilyich said there is no point

Genius and villainy are compatible

Paranoia is still my fix

I have met history coming the other way

The grave straightens out the humpbacked

I pretend to pen great thoughts

Unlucky in cards

And outside in

I lift the receiver

Are they taking good care of you

Gymnastics for the dying

Today I would make silence

Notes

Further Reading

Gareth Reeves studied at the University of Oxford and at Stanford University, where he held a Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship. Until recently he was Reader in English at Durham University, where he ran an MA creative writing course in poetry. Carcanet Press have published four collections of his poetry, Real Stories ... read more

'It isn't easy for a poet to keep faith with Shostakovich, for whom words solved nothing, whose resort was music and, beyond that, self-defeatingly and only in imagination, silence. Reeves does just that.'
Gillian Allnutt 'A compelling psychodrama about the tangle of self-justification, guilt and defiance that has turned Shostakovich ... into a paradigm of the conflict between artistic integrity and political compromise.... Shostakovichâs inner life was like âan incessantly running motor, an ever-open woundâ. It is this ârunning motorâ to which Reeves listens so carefully in these poems, matching Shostakovichâs expedient avoidance of too clear an equivalence between meaning and expression with language that plays similar equivocal tricks.... But Reeves sees, beyond the irony in Shostakovichâs soul, a man haunted by his past and its effect on his art: âYears ago I listened to the noise of time. / It took revenge. Now I want /noise out of timeâ. The rest is silence.'
Andrew McCulloch, TLS June 6 2014 Praise for Gareth Reeves '"The Cockroach Sang in the Plane-tree" surprisingly bypasses the personal dimension altogether. Even more startling is the liturgical momentum of its lines, a series of bleak declarations about nuclear annihilation whose potency remains undiminished in a post-cold war context."
Keith Silver, London Magazine 'Among the most remarkable [poems] are those which pay tribute to his father and the latter's struggle against his growing blindness... The honesty of these poems, and the way they cope with the complexity and ambiguity of emotion which perhaps must always inform the relationship between son and father are truly admirable.'
John Heath-Stubbs, Acumen '...in the sequence entitled "Going Blind", in which he recalls his father James Reeves... he constructs nothing less than a living memorial in verse... By making his difficult poetic inheritance part of the subject of his verse, Gareth Reeves, paradoxically, has written his most original work to date.'
Robert Nye, The Times '...his images, seen through the lens of memory, are sharp and distinct... Perhaps it is when dealing with individuals that Reeves's wry insight shows to best advantage; those, and the complications and inadequacies of love. A friend, having borrowed the book, remarked: "Usually, I can't take more than two or three poems at a time; but I kept on reading this to find out what happens next!" Which seems to sum up these compulsive, memorable, well-crafted poems.'
David Holliday, Outposts 'Gareth Reeves's Real Stories is his first book of verse, and a very good one... Nothing is smooth or bland or hinted at. Translations from Horace, American landscape, even the lyrical harking back to Tennyson...; he handles them all well.'
Gavin Ewart, British Book News '...he writes a quiet undemonstrative poetry but that is not so say he lacks scope or ambition. He says somewhere that "honesty is difficult / Devious, silent". The poems are usually short but carefully constructed around perceptions of loneliness, full of sharp but discreet observation that mounts like evidence.'
George Szirtes, Critical Quarterly '...distinguished by economy, quiet wit and resolute affection... Real Stories is enlivened by a central section of poems set in California, an inspired location - imagine Joan Didion, say, in Durham. The strangeness of both landscape and people is wryly observed... This marriage of down-to-earth observation with off-beat material works well.'
Charles Boyle, London Magazine

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Nuncle Music Gareth Reeves Categories: 21st Century, British Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (80 pages) (Pub. Sep 2013) 9781847771537 Out of Stock Description Excerpt Author Contents Reviews Death is simple, after all Death is simple, after all (stabbing through the eyes for instance, or nails pounded into the skull in regular staccato over and over). If a person’s to die, he’ll die anyway, if a person’s to live, he’ll live anyway, but I prefer to tiptoe, a grotesque elephant dance. In his dacha Club Foot twitches an eyebrow, and that’s it, you’re done for, the little runt is dead. I lead a charmed life: I live. Some charm, some life. ‘You must not take me at my word, / you must take me at my lack of word, / you must take me at my music.’ In Nuncle Music, a sequence of monologues ‘spoken’ by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Gareth Reeves presents the psychodrama of an artist forced into the service of tyranny. Though the terror and intrigue of Soviet life haunt the poetry, acerbic wit and mischief are also here: Hamlet farts through a flute, Stalin plays the triangle, and up in space cosmonaut Gagarin sings a song by Shostakovich of ‘intergalactic platitudes’. Barrie Ormsby’s drawings provide a vivid accompaniment to Reeves’ poems. Revolution is the getting Listen, I give you sound I said I went to the Finland Station The future, it will blow over Muddle Instead of Music These guts churn. The world goes out of focus Wind-up people, we are all wound up The circus is pure art Hamlet farts through a flute No toadstools? An anthem, do me an anthem The production of souls The Nose: an anarchist’s hand bomb One day a sparrow flew into my dacha We are the masterpiece makers The sky is dressed in a gendarme’s blue-grey trousers I am possessed, the Boss’s pet The Morning Greets Us with Coolness Composers must master one instrument at least One-ski, two-ski, three-ski Devils, enemies of the people We live in the dark Death is simple, after all You are hungry Best not write anything big on days The bigger the lie the more you’ll get the point Thank you, everything is fine I’m no Pasternak, no pig kicked Look at that smile Dim-witted workers of the ‘punitive organs’ Scotch the formalist snake God walked in the Garden of Eden What a disgusting Do not contemplate the navel of art Play it so that flies drop dead in mid-air The Steel Man sings Sergei Prokofiev is dead Art is arrogant, it takes no hostages The delicious word death, my foot Art belongs to the people Bloody Sunday? Suddenly I am absolved Let us sing a song Deputy to the Supreme Soviet Everyone wants to be clean Gagarin sings my song in space I have wept three times An improvised life, what is that? Pyotr Ilyich said there is no point Genius and villainy are compatible Paranoia is still my fix I have met history coming the other way The grave straightens out the humpbacked I pretend to pen great thoughts Unlucky in cards And outside in I lift the receiver Are they taking good care of you Gymnastics for the dying Today I would make silence Notes Further Reading Gareth Reeves studied at the University of Oxford and at Stanford University, where he held a Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship. Until recently he was Reader in English at Durham University, where he ran an MA creative writing course in poetry. Carcanet Press have published four collections of his poetry, Real Stories ... read more 'It isn't easy for a poet to keep faith with Shostakovich, for whom words solved nothing, whose resort was music and, beyond that, self-defeatingly and only in imagination, silence. Reeves does just that.' Gillian Allnutt 'A compelling psychodrama about the tangle of self-justification, guilt and defiance that has turned Shostakovich ... into a paradigm of the conflict between artistic integrity and political compromise.... Shostakovichâs inner life was like âan incessantly running motor, an ever-open woundâ. It is this ârunning motorâ to which Reeves listens so carefully in these poems, matching Shostakovichâs expedient avoidance of too clear an equivalence between meaning and expression with language that plays similar equivocal tricks.... But Reeves sees, beyond the irony in Shostakovichâs soul, a man haunted by his past and its effect on his art: âYears ago I listened to the noise of time. / It took revenge. Now I want /noise out of timeâ. The rest is silence.' Andrew McCulloch, TLS June 6 2014 Praise for Gareth Reeves '"The Cockroach Sang in the Plane-tree" surprisingly bypasses the personal dimension altogether. Even more startling is the liturgical momentum of its lines, a series of bleak declarations about nuclear annihilation whose potency remains undiminished in a post-cold war context." Keith Silver, London Magazine 'Among the most remarkable [poems] are those which pay tribute to his father and the latter's struggle against his growing blindness... The honesty of these poems, and the way they cope with the complexity and ambiguity of emotion which perhaps must always inform the relationship between son and father are truly admirable.' John Heath-Stubbs, Acumen '...in the sequence entitled "Going Blind", in which he recalls his father James Reeves... he constructs nothing less than a living memorial in verse... By making his difficult poetic inheritance part of the subject of his verse, Gareth Reeves, paradoxically, has written his most original work to date.' Robert Nye, The Times '...his images, seen through the lens of memory, are sharp and distinct... Perhaps it is when dealing with individuals that Reeves's wry insight shows to best advantage; those, and the complications and inadequacies of love. A friend, having borrowed the book, remarked: "Usually, I can't take more than two or three poems at a time; but I kept on reading this to find out what happens next!" Which seems to sum up these compulsive, memorable, well-crafted poems.' David Holliday, Outposts 'Gareth Reeves's Real Stories is his first book of verse, and a very good one... Nothing is smooth or bland or hinted at. Translations from Horace, American landscape, even the lyrical harking back to Tennyson...; he handles them all well.' Gavin Ewart, British Book News '...he writes a quiet undemonstrative poetry but that is not so say he lacks scope or ambition. He says somewhere that "honesty is difficult / Devious, silent". The poems are usually short but carefully constructed around perceptions of loneliness, full of sharp but discreet observation that mounts like evidence.' George Szirtes, Critical Quarterly '...distinguished by economy, quiet wit and resolute affection... Real Stories is enlivened by a central section of poems set in California, an inspired location - imagine Joan Didion, say, in Durham. The strangeness of both landscape and people is wryly observed... This marriage of down-to-earth observation with off-beat material works well.' Charles Boyle, London Magazine You might also be interested in: To Hell With Paradise Gareth Reeves Selected Poems Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Translated by Daniel Weissbort The Reasoner Jeffrey Wainwright	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog Coco Island: Christine Roseeta Walker read more that which appears: Thomas A Clark read more Come Here to This Gate: Rory Waterman read more Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more
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