Ocean Hearted, by Graham Nunn.
Another Lost Shark Publications.
I always enjoy a poetry collection that not only allows me to indulge in good poetry but takes me on a narrative journey. Graham Nunn’s Ocean Hearted is a collection that took me places, brought back memories of growing up by the seaside, and offered up visions I’ve yet to see. I was drawn into the collection from his opening poem ‘Grounded’.
In a crowded bar on Merthyr Street
he trembled like a sailor
having seen the slope of the world and its infinite
smallness, having returned
with the illusion he had not changed, but friends
had grown old and disappeared
into home and heartbreak.
All of us at one time or another, have returned, whether from a weekend away, a short holiday or an even longer absence. And once back, tried to be reabsorbed into our home/ town/ country. Nunn captures that stranger in a familiar land feeling without that nostalgic softness that often intrudes in others’ attempts.
Several of his poems, on one level look at landscape, particularly that of the river and sea. He uses the senses to capture the exactness that often is missed when a poet attempts to describe landscape. In several poems the landscape became more than a place, it became ‘place’ and therefore an integral part of the poem, such as this from ‘Riversongs’
It was good to wake this morning, knowing nothing except
there was a river, lacquered blue, streaked with light, shallow
over sand flats where flathead slouch and whiting shiver in schools
‘Good Friday, Brunswick Heads’ brought back memories I thought long forgotten.
And it stops my breath. It was a
morning incapable of cold, I never once thought of the rocks
pulling me into darkness and doing it now, I’m back there
staring at my wading boots, wondering,
the placement of them?
I recall rock fishing with my family as a child, and watching as my father was taken by a wave. Those seconds when everything froze – the sea, sky, land, all silent – then life returned. My mother screaming, us children not knowing whether to cry or not, and then my father swimming ashore – abusing the loss of his fishing rod and the fish he swore he’d hooked just before the wave. Nunn in his poem has taken me back to that moment.
Other poems in the collection look at endings; of relationships, of life, of friendships, even the seasons. His poem ‘Heyford Street’ offers a snapshot of the childhood home, once again without seeing through cloying nostalgic rose-tinted glasses.
Ash-grey asbestos roof tiles overlapped in patterns
reminiscent of a snake’s scales and downpipes
held emaciated fingers to the sagging eaves.
I like the honestly Nunn offers. He is a great observer and it’s the little details that he puts into a poem that resonate, gives it life and connects with the reader. I also enjoyed how he dealt with the simple domesticities of life, often setting them one minute by calm seaside breezes and next, storm-tossed skies.
From ‘Moored’:
At the window of this cheap motel
I turn to the dawn and spit.
The rain from yesterday falls bleakly
in the gap between our hearts.
What really intrigued me was how water, either represented by the river or the sea, was so much a part of his poetry. Even the poems based on relationships, had an ebb and flow. Often as a reader I was floating with the current, allowing his words to wash over me, suddenly there would be a surge, poems such as ‘News on the phone’ and ‘Last tricks,’ a wave pulling me under and forcing me to the surface for breath.
Kevin Gillam states Nunn writes with a photographic eye and painter’s sensibility. He does indeed do that, giving us all those details that give a poem depth, but for me there was also an honesty that added reality. I have read and re-read this collection, finding something new each time and I’m looking forward to the discovery of my next reading of Ocean Hearted.
