Slide

by Mark Pajak

'Fresh, urgent, alive... genius.' Patience Agbabi This assured and arresting first collection moves deftly and with purpose into private, hidden places - a locked shed, the dark of a battery farm, a murky riverbed, a late-night bar - to show, unflinchingly and in cinematic detail, what we might otherwise choose not to see. Sight is both a gift and curse, of given or taken away in poems of windows and curtains, torches and blindfolds, and yet here - following in the tradition of Oswald and Heaney - each image is freshly minted through a cool, objective eye. Every poem seeks to inhabit those seemingly small but pivotal moments which have monumental, sometimes mortal, consequences. For Pajak, time is a blink can be 'slow as an eclipse', our lifetimes are fleeting, our deaths often lingering and seldom peaceful or painless. Vivid and visceral, steadily examining violence, sexual encounters, childhood and ageing (a dying grandmother's 'slow pink eyelids, those quick teaspoon breaths'), cars and cities, and Nature - full of wonder and threat - Slide is always asking pertinent illuminating brutality, frailty and tenderness, the responsibility of those who witness - whether voyeur, bystander or reader. This is a charged, beautifully observed and thrilling debut.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2022

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Mark Pajak's debut collection and is nominated for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2023. It's a pretty self-assured first collection, which is probably not surprising for someone who, as the Notes and Acknowledgments notes, has been mentored and encouraged by some impressive people.

It's got an interesting vibe to it. It like stepping into the shadowy side of the road on a mild but sunny day. You suddenly notice a chill in the air. It's smells of stinging nettles and rust.

They're skilfully put together and he's the master of balance. Everything feels just right. He's also a bugger for whacking you with a great end couple of lines that stick the landing and stick with you.

"and because this hammer
is never deft
never taking just one swipe."
The Knack

"As my friend drives the hot mile of Castle Street and nothing is said."
(which is both the final line and the title of that poem)

"I am stacking plates
thinking
how neatly
one emptiness
fits into the next."
Minimum Wage

"The smell of an old book is a memory of trees
A boy can tilt into it, the way a drunk
tilts her glass, and lean back emptied."
The Tilt

They're like the punchlines to exceptionally fine jokes.

Two poems that I really felt in my gut were A Cotton Hanging and Slaughterhouse Worker at the Public Pool.

Totally recommended.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I debated giving Slide a rating at all. Never has a poet impressed me so much with his crisp, compressed writing while writing about things I have no wish to think about or observe: violence and self-violence, icky stuff. Had I read the first two poems in a bookstore, I’d have put the book back. Since I got it for Christmas, I read on and was rewarded.

My favorite poem was about how he found a refuge from the hardships at home, avoiding the “dark kitchen” of his mum’s hangover by slipping off to a quiet neighborhood bookstore:

“….And I’d kneel to a low shelf,
choose at random and break open
a loaf of paper. It didn’t matter

that I couldn’t afford it, or that soon
the owner would make me leave,
or that I was only four and couldn’t read….”
(from “The Tilt”)

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the entire year I subscribed to the LRB, Pajak's were the only real poems that paper ever published. I looked up and bought his first pamphlet and was glad that I did. Now he's published this, his first collection - and it's a belter.

Now, at this point, I normally quote key lines, cite some freshly-minted images, or roll out a list of my favourites among the poems. Not this time. I wouldn't want to spoil a single line for you. Suffice to say I envy readers who have Pajak's work ahead of them.

[Dave Wakely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the most impressive new voice I've encountered in poetry in a long while: echoes of Gunn (precision that is almost brutal, tight control of language and form) and Hughes (nature is here but never prettified), but an unflinching glance all its own. Excellent.

[Peter B Waddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The moment; the sensations of the moment; the outworking of what and who and what again...in helpings of words as right as a Japanese lunchbox.

Thank you MP.

[Charlotte Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5

[Luke Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very assured and impressive debut. My favourite is "A Set Place".

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stellar language, incredible imagery - favorite being 'After Closing Time'

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so happy to discover this poet and his work, which I had never read before this book was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot. I will be reading everything he publishes from now on.