... when the eye sees something beautiful, the whole body wants to reproduce it.

                                      — Elain Scarry



Grateful acknowledgement is made to Oana Cambrea for the use of her digital art, Autumn (2007).



Henry Shukman's In Doctor No's Garden

(Cape Poetry, 2002)


I first came across Henry Shukman's work in the Forward Book of Poetry 2002. Like a haunting prelude, "Piano Solo" sowed its notes deeply and refused to undo the spell. Viewed with a critical eye, the poem is simple and undemanding. Composed of four quatrains, it begins:


                   Years after my mother chose emptiness
                   at night I'd hear her at the piano
                   planting chords, waiting for them
                   to grow into something.


The more I read it, the more I felt the melancholy rhythm, the rise and fall of her failure, her insistence to begin playing again and again—badly. I was hooked. In the end, I threw up my hands and bought Shukman's début collection.

Comprised of 41 poems and a lengthy list of interesting acknowledgements, In Doctor No's Garden opens with "Snowy Morning" which goes through thoughts of dying like an invigorating breeze. I think the following lines from the poem also acts as an fitting introduction to the book:


                                                           There isn't much to say.
                   This is a day that decides by itself to be beautiful.


And it is a decidedly beautiful collection. The poems are contemplative in nature and striking in their observations, at times almost irreverent. Shukman captivates with visions of Howard's tongue touching the heart of an embryo chick in science class, a father and his young son pee-bonding in a public toilet, a tailor brought back to life by his grandson sewing a button. There are also two poems dedicated individually to Harada, who had the best and worst scores of the Nagano Games, and Mark Spitz who seemed to have won his medals by fantasizing about girls at the end of the pool.

One my favorites is "End of an Era", a startling poem which features an aging James Bond in the bath, the martinis having made a Michelin of his middle and resorting to the yellow pages for escort and massage services. The double agent kills time, thinking of death:


                   One of these days: datura from Dr No's garden,
                   a single silver bullet from the PPK, faithful to the last,
                   or something shocking in the bath: Do unplug the hairdrier
                   before you pull me out. Regards, Double O Out.


"Mexican Hotel Room" tackles the scene after a fight with one's spouse during a vacation, the wife's wail How did it get like this recalls a banshee deprived of water for her dead man's clothes. With the two opening lines, he already captures the mood:


                   Five hundred miles inland
                   all I can think of is the sea.


"Dentists" is a humorous visit into various clinics through the years, the marked transition from Mr Sharpe of Herne Road with his Inca figure and a blind eye on his forehead to:


                   Now Janice, of suntanned cleavage,
                   pornographic voice. Naughty boy, smoking still?
                   Her professional hands tackle the instruments
                   of hygiene. The farce begins, the gurgles,
                   whizzes, sucks, as the stiff white package
                   of her chest descends. I imagine unbuttoning it,
                   but she's at me with the pick.


"New Year Train" reflects on the irretrievable passage of time. The narrator muses about his life as full of missed Novembers. There is a nuance of sadness in this poem and, at the same time, the feeling is almost hopeful. The comfort in an imperfect present runs very strong in the lines:

                   The train gathers itself in a rattle of triumph

                   as if moving towards something that will really happen.
                   Station by station we desert it,
                   and it travels faster, lighter into the night.


In Dr No's Garden swarms with all sorts of people, planted in pages like flowerbeds: a suckling baby whose eyes glisten like some feat of marine chemistry, another one saved from fire by chicken soup, a lifter dubbed Maria of the Carrara-Cinzano eyes, schoolboys sneaking drinks because adulthood was a garden where alcohol flowed in streams, the suicide on a ferry, even a taxi driver whose old sedan's upholstery was sagging onto the chassis.

I have to say that I'm enjoying the visit from my couch, Shukman as a poet is quite hospitable, his engaging voice pleasant to the ear. In particular I am fascinated by his sun cracked like an egg on the roof, spilling down the windows. It's a beautiful day for looking outside, the elegant shadows and fresh plots In Dr No's Garden.