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DANZ QUARTERLY Issue No 11
April, May, June 2008
Reviews
Book Review:
laughing mirror by Douglas Wright
Steele Roberts September 2007
Reviewed by Raewyn Whyte
Choreographer and Arts Laureate Douglas Wright announced his retirement from dance on the occasion of the publication of his first collection of poetry, laughing mirror, on 6 September 2007. His facility with words and ability to conjure rich imagery, demonstrated previously in two volumes of prose memoirs, is a notable parallel to his eloquence in danced movement, and it seems entirely logical and fitting that he should turn to poetry itself as a purer form of expression in which to explore his public voice.
As I read the 34 poems in laughing mirror, I feel almost as if I'm eavesdropping, as if just outside my window Douglas is speaking to himself, or as if I'm inside his head as he recalls fragments of conversation, writes and draws in his notebooks, processes his thoughts.
And that, of course, is the particular magic wrought by poets - the ability to conjure through words on the page, instant recognition and acceptance of the communication on offer - regardless of how difficult it is to parse the sense of the words if you take them literally or try to be objective about them.
The poems here range widely in topic and form, from the prosaic preface and the delightful timeto the elegiac my 50th year to heaven, from the carefully corralled rhythm of mother tongue to the plainly experimental the incomplete list of the uncanny and the semi-found old cotton reels.
The poet examines with a good degree of discipline and intensity his own experiences and aspects of his existence ranging from aspects of gay sexuality, through heard-through-the-wall domestic arguments, horrifying nightmares, and being no-one from nowhere, to the desire to be desired and the need to avoid another's pain. In dithyramb there's a hint of the sorrow of giving up choreography, but everywhere in the book there is such joy in word play that the sorrow is elided.
He offers advice, "never trust an artist who is always trying to explain their work", and reflects on the iconic imagery of Munch's great Scream which looks "as if he swallowed his own head." He honours his muses Nijinsky and Emily Dickinson, and other idols, such as Louise Bourgeois and Tobias Schneebaum. He deeply mourns the recent death of his mentor and much beloved Malcolm, and acknowledges the healing and personal growth that results from surrender to pain and to grief.
Throughout the book are drawings similar to those in Wright's choreographic notebooks, occasionally seen in program notes. Though they resemble doodles, they also offer up the traces of the body moving through space, whether that be across a dance floor, through a dream, or in the vaults of his memory.
Each reader will find their own favourites, whether complete poems, or fragments, for their literality, or their allegorical value. I enjoyed the collection as a whole, but the ant whose delicate, detailed, intricate karmic journey is encapsulated in section 2 of blood honey (p65) has somehow taken up residence in my mind along with all those Wright dances:
an ant begins to cross the desert
of an open book's page -
it is so much slower than an eye . . .
finally reaching the intricate oasis of text
the insect becomes confused, hesitates, lost -
appears to die
on a comma,
then goes on its way
digesting the etymology of each scented
word
trying to suck honey from the font -
sometimes where it pauses, a letter
changes into a kind of kinetic rune:
prophetic -
all day for years the ant wanders in the garden of words
trying to eat a slant through the quincunx
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