Poetry workshop: self-portraits

A portrait – in poetry or painting – will seek to capture a likeness, but a likeness alone (however accurate) is not enough. The best portraits seem possessed by their subjects. Their wit, vigour, suffering, anger are not merely reflected but enacted every time the poem is read or the painting seen. The same is true of self-portraits, but they are much harder. We often mystify and misunderstand each other, but we are even more opaque to ourselves, so a powerful self-portrait is a work of exploration, an act of making. This often requires an imaginative leap (as with Neruda's Animal of Light), and the poems discussed below all make such leaps. Some are close to completion, others feel like work in progress, but they all – in different ways – do more than simply reflect. Without knowing the poets, it's impossible to say if their poems capture a likeness, but they all have a presence, and offer the reader a vivid encounter with a person. It's been a pleasure to read these self-portraits.

Daniel Brint's poem I Have Become Detailed is an unsettling and effective self portrait set in a place where self-possession is hard to achieve.

I have become detailed by Daniel Brint

I have become detailed, imaged, resonated.
Machines, nurses, orderlies render the minutiae
Of nerve and stem, define a new, reflected self
Of unsuspected complexity. I am passed through tunnels,
My atoms sifted in darkened rooms,
Defective blood scrutinized objectively.
In spaces mirrorless and bright.
A child's face against a dusty window
Flapped open to the air, eyes remain
Where flesh has withered, a cold perfume
Of chemicals and odorless poisons –
And now my father's face stares back,
As if, positioned at this nucleus of silence
Only extremes are revealed, and distances closed.

The central phrase (and current title) – I have become detailed - is very arresting, and calls to mind Keith Douglas's remarkable poem Simplify Me When I'm Dead. In Daniel Brint's poem, the sense of a person being scanned, monitored, observed in clinical detail is very well evoked, as is the bewildering array of medical technologies. In its current form, the repetition of the title in the first line weakens the opening of the poem, but it's so effective in the first line that I'd consider changing the title. In a few places, the punctuation works against the poem, as with the full stop after "objectively" at the end of line six, and the capitals at the start of each line seem unnecessary in a poem like this. Poems will often gain (as do short stories) from an earlier exit point, and I was tempted to suggest ending this poem with the strong image of the father's face. However, the last two lines are powerful, and their language (especially "nucleus of silence") fits the poem well.

Sarah Davies's poem is a quirky self portrait, seen through the arrival in her family of a dog, also called Sarah.

At fifteen, Mother called to me by the name of our dog by Sarah Davies

Sarah the daughter and Sarah the dog,
brindle bitch, dark tiger stripes and round her eyes, Cleopatra kohl
Her ribs, butterfly-folded, made you aware of what they were:
a cage for the heart

Sarah would not bite; she barely barked
She used to shiver when she was touched, but became accustomed to it
Loved running and the ground raced to catch her up
Walked with grace three steps behind,
her head narrow enough to slip the collar, but she stayed
Looked like she could win a race, but the lines were barely pure enough
Gouge on her muzzle from a fast hunt

She came to heel at the calling of her name,
given by the shelter girls; what a coincidence,
the same as the daughter of the house, though they
were never seen together

She haunted the father and the brother,
pulled slightly on the lead when it was the mother walking
because she carried all the shadows of the house with her
When asked how Sarah was, this mother said
thin, nervous both: the girl, the dog.

I'm a bit uncertain whether Sarah Davies intended At fifteen, mother called to me by the name of our dog to be the title of her poem or the first line. I think the long title (though I think long titles can be surprising and effective) doesn't work here because it gives away too much too soon. The poem describes very well the awkwardness of the daughter and dog having the same name, and the growing sense of similarity ("thin, nervous both") between them. The writing is spare and lucid, with occasional moments ("barely pure enough / Gouge on her muzzle…") when it seems to lose its way. There is punctuation in the poem, but it isn't carried through and used consistently, and the poem suffers in places for that. I'd also look again at the integrity of some of the lines. A line like "Looked like she could win a race, but the lines were barely pure enough" is so long that it's hard to maintain a sense of rhythm and unity. I think the final stanza (especially "she carried all the shadows of the house with her") is beautifully judged.

Dawn Hobbs's poem 7.15am is a portrait of youth and longing.

7.15 am by Dawn Hobbs

I drag my leather boots from under the bed,
my pink tights from the drawer,
and dress loosely;

tie a silk scarf behind my head
and look into the mirror.
I see the reflection of the window,

the avenue, the row of houses
on either side, down to where
they disappear in a blue haze

to the North,
and wonder why I dress this way
when so few see me.

I have a mind to travel
beyond the distant haze
to cities

where, in bars and crowds and sleaziness
I can blend
and pout my lips

and bore into the depths of old men's souls
with ice-blue eyes
(though mine are brown and smouldering)

One day all this will happen;
but now I strip,
pull on my jeans

my cotton shirt;
toss the leather boots back under the bed,
slip into cream shoes.

Soon I will grab the sandwiches my mother has made,
kiss her,
leave to catch the 8.05.

I like the way the whole scene is described through the mirror, and the story told through the detail of the choice of clothes, although the differences between the two outfits – at the beginning and end of the poem – could be clearer. The poem is particularly impressive when it looks deeper into the mirror, beyond the figure dressing, at the reflection of the window with its orderly rows of familiar houses and the "blue haze" beyond them with its promise of cities, "bars and crowds and sleaziness" and the future. The shift from the eyes in her imagined future to those in the mirror is effective, but some of the details in the poem could be pushed further, beyond the familiar territory of "ice blue" and "smouldering".

Harriet Torr's poem Myself As Flea is an engaging portrait that owes something to John Donne's famous poem The Flea.

Myself As Flea by Harriet Torr

When I left the circus,
I took to walking the streets,
looking for skirt. I've followed
your crimson petticoats from day one,
there's no end to lace and tulle,
your flourish on park benches
when you sit catching the sun.
But one day, I followed a shadow
in the folds of your coat
and you carried me indoors.
I swell with blood and pride,
plan places for division,
separate aisles between the bed and post,
your soft folds like plums to my thistledown probe.

This poem starts very well, with wit and swagger, and the play on "looking for skirt". Like Donne's poem, it describes a seduction, or an attempted seduction, but the swagger of the opening doesn't quite carry through. Most poems get tighter and shorter with redrafting, but I'd like to see this one get a little more expansive. I have a feeling that there's more to come from this poem, more detail and more swagger, carried by the voice of this sassy flea.

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