Sarcasms for Word Processors

Andrew Brooks was Assistant Editor of Ethos magazine.

The short, curious poems in this book by the poetry editor of Pierian Spring are wry, often tongue-in-cheek observations on human foibles and experience. It’s hard to get a handle on them, because Hanly’s own presence is often remote. “Human Rights Petition,” for example, begins with an obvious authorial stance which, in a few lines, melts away completely. In poems where Hanly’s stance remains clear, this is accomplished through subtle description of “fact,” and in such description the book seems to be the product of a writer familiar with — and skilful in — haiku. Some poems are explicit examples of this form.

Much of the poetry aims at a sarcastic humour that can be concise and revealing while it amuses, but it requires a broad experiential context. Many poems are too brief to draw in enough experience. We may understand what Hanly’s referring to, but it still has to be in the poem. An example of this failure is “Black Mountain Technique.” (A conspicuous success is “The Evanescence of Now,” a neat self-referential piece.)

Sarcasms works best when Hanly himself openly steps far enough into the light to become recognizable. Often he retreats so far from the surface that a reader/poet meeting simply can’t happen. Elsewhere he makes his point quickly but hammers at it for half a dozen additional unnecessary lines, as in “A Dog’s Day,” a poem that would work better in half the space. Although no poem exceeds one page (with plenty of white space even at that), many could be even shorter, if they’re to be the cameos Hanly’s trying to achieve.

With his better work, in poems like “Learning,” Hanly approaches the clarity of Sousters; his failures are due to his absence, and they frustrate the reader. There are equal quantities of both in Sarcasms.