Atomic Ballet. S. K. Kelen. Hale and Iremonger.
Reviewed by Michael Byrne
Atomic Ballet (1991) is the first book of poems by Australian poet S. K. Kelen. His early poetry is difficult to categorise. In one word, the poems in Atomic Ballet are different (‘Venice’):
Bugsa Bunny you’re the sanest man
in all Italia last hope for risorgimento
singing Santa Lucia in the barbershop
glorious ears twitching, your gondolier
the only golden one in Venice
carving new canals infuriating
a city of inflated shopkeepers.
Sylvester, leaving pawprints on tourist maps
living the chase without travellers’ cheques
perhaps Europe’s last sportsman
then one last swing across Canal Grande
220,000 tourist eyes blinded by your tail.
If the reader goes along with this poem he or she is rewarded with Kelen’s sense of fun. Kelen plays on the personalities of the cartoon characters well. Another thing that this poem and others in Atomic Ballet have is imagination (‘TV or the Bush’):
A small town deity resides
behind a waterfall but
presides over the TV
At night with good humour
the local forest nymphs come
out of the gum trees to join
him & stay up late watching TV.
There is a touch of the exotic in the waterfall and nymphs. Also, the poem is so communal – the reader almost watches TV with everybody. In another poem, the reader almost experiences the view from the ninety-ninth floor of a building (‘Skyscrapers’):
Bright clouds
reflected in glass cliffs: white,
grey & blue, buildings a mirror
for the sky and inside them
Time passes through an in-tray.
Big things are happening outside
like drum-majors crashing cars,
police are looking for crime,
yet from the ninety-ninth floor it all looks
like an ant-colony cooling down
before knock-off time. Search and there’s
a nineteenth-century post-box
tarted up with a fresh coat of red paint.
Bright clouds
Having the beginning as the end (and vice versa) is something of a surprise. It is also different and occurs in the first poem of the book. It illustrates what is to follow in Atomic Ballet. Kelen, in Atomic Ballet, can be humorous (‘The Koala Motel Dream’):
It’s a dog all right the nurse told you
your wife has just given birth to a beautiful
bouncing afghan hound you must decide
either to hand out cigars and carry on
or tell them at the office fuck something . . .
Dreams are fertile ground for poems and Kelen wisely takes advantage of one. The poem is genuinely funny, it has good humour and also a certain charm. Other poems in Atomic Ballet are more sombre (‘Koki Market’):
Naked children
play while a red-brown man with no legs,
held up by crutches, looks sadly over a
universe of waves to heaven.
This thumbnail sketch of the red-brown man is outstanding. It is poignant and says a lot in few words. Kelen’s travel poems in Atomic Ballet (such as ‘Koki Market’ and ‘A Traveller’s Guide to the East Indies’) are illuminating and show a depth of understanding for the places he visits. They are augmented in Atomic Ballet by cerebrally challenging poems (such as ‘Savant Savage’ and ‘The History of Common Sense’) and the surrealist ones (such as ‘Isle of Thieves’ and ‘The Tea Break’). All of these contribute to a delightful poetic mixed bag. Atomic Ballet is a varied collection notable for its eccentricity, sense of fun and ideas. Kelen got off to a great start with it.
Michael Byrne 