Words in Common. Geoff Campbell. Odrerir Books.
Reviewed by Michael Byrne
Geoff Campbell has a number of strings to his bow. For starters, he is an accomplished mathematician. He also has been a professional football umpire. Also, he can run a marathon. Finally, Campbell is a poet. He has been published in many journals and anthologies. Also, he has read his poetry on radio. And in 1987, he was awarded a New Writers Grant from the Australia Council.
With the first poem in a poetry collection, the poet has an opportunity to make a statement. Campbell does this. His first poem is a poem of gentleness and kindness (‘Italians’):
We cannot move
for baskets of fruit
on our doorstep.
We ponder the number
of words in common
and settle for a smile.
Here, the poet uses the title of the collection in a poem. It energises the penultimate line. Campbell is also a poet of last lines (‘The Big Pussycat’):
The Big Pussycat is eunuch and sensitive
so I whisper when he’s near.
He worships Cod.
The last line in this extract is clever, and funny. In another poem, the subject matter warrants apt earnestness (‘Cleaner’s Binge’):
I try to overlook
pickled underwear in the tea-urn
my stack of clean plates
imploded back in cupboards.
The cleaner here is deftly portrayed as a second class citizen. Campbell also writes about other work (‘Taxi Driving’):
Squelches of the radio
mumble like snoring executives:
they whisk me into the suburbs.
My cab is a yellow flame
snuffed into night.
Campbell writes about work and does it well. He also writes solely in free verse and does it well. There is an art to writing solely in free verse. Particularly when it comes to writing long poems. Campbell’s long poems are all sustained from the beginning to the end. All the poems in Words in Common are worth reading. For their humour, humanity, grace, imagery, kindness and other attributes.
Michael Byrne 