Dragon Talk

by Fleur Adcock

After the appearance of Fleur Adcock's Poems 1960-2000 she wrote no more poems for several years. This cessation coincided with - but was not entirely caused by - her giving up smoking. When poetry returned to her in 2003 it tended towards a sparer, more concentrated style. This new collection continues to reflect her preoccupations with family matters and with her ambivalent feelings about her native New Zealand. ""These poems are lively pieces leavened by Adcock's humor and her keen observations of the ridiculousness and peculiarities of life."" World Literature Today

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2010

About the author

Fleur Adcock was a New Zealand poet and editor. Of English and Northern Irish ancestry, Adcock lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Victoria University of Wellington, and was awarded an OBE in 1996 for her contribution to New Zealand literature. In 2008 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.

Reviews

[tara bomp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really understand what makes poetry good yet so keep that in mind

enjoyable and good poetry. felt very down to earth and relatable and the style is very easy to read. most of the poems are about her childhood and they're good at capturing a certain feeling - found a few pretty affecting without really understanding why. the last few are reflections on grandmotherhood and her own mothers death that are emotional but not dramatic - kind of understated but still touching and relatable.

feel like maybe it'd stay with you over time even though all the poems are kind of quiet and understated and almost all about very average events. it's all very explicitly autobiographical yet still feels close enough to touch off your own feelings. like listening to your granny talking actually. There's a homely feeling in a good way.

talking about it convinced me to raise the rating to 4 stars cause it touched me more than I realised

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid and simple. There's no lofty worldview here - just plain recounting of her childhood in Britain in the Blitz, and how it felt to leave it behind to return to New Zealand.

[Tim Love · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poems from Agenda, Ambit, PN Review, Poetry Review, The Rialto, TLS, etc.

The title poem is 4 pages of misunderstandings that voice recognition can make, the name of the software being exploited. It was a Guardian poem of the week. Wow.

She knows how to add just enough to a text so that the piece isn't a complete waste, though texts like "Lollies", "3 September 1939", "Just in case", etc, fail even that minimal requirement. The best lines are usually at the end - "I'm drawing a face. Inside my head I can see it clearly, but my fingers won't do what I tell them. It turns out to be a round patch of scribble. It looks more like the world" (p.14), "The milk she squeezes out of the cow turns into butter when she churns it. Life's mysterious, but I'm used to that." (p.15), "Life makes a lot more sense when you can spell" (p.16), etc. Looked upon generously, the line breaks are superfluous. Pieces like "Mr Dolman" and "Biro" are innocuous even with the line breaks removed.

[Sara Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

64 little poetry stories of Fleur Alcock’s life: early childhood living in and leaving New Zealand, coming to Britain and experiencing the Second World War, her mother’s memory loss and death, and the new generations of grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Each poem is very conversational in tone, and very spare, but somehow holds a lot in so very few words. Take the poem Glass, which ends “But if you walked to school you might be able to add to your collection of coloured glass: rubies and sapphires; bits of saints and martyrs” and takes me right back to pictures of blitzed London without explicitly saying anything about bombs or war.

Fleur Adcock was born in 1934, so was in her 70s when this was published in 2010, but her writing still feels very fresh and modern, probably because it is so pared back - and I love that she swears at her speech to text software (the Dragon Talk of the title) and it renders it faithfully in text “fucking moron.”

[andré crombie · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the bus, you added up the numbers
on your ticket: if they came to 21
that meant you were going to get a sweetheart.

But if you walked to school, you might be able
to add to your collection of coloured glass:
rubies and sapphires; bits of saints and martyrs.

notes: astonishing poetry. direct, somehow both rich and unadorned, encapsulating the accumulated wisdom of a life.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this collection Fleur Adcock brilliantly captures how children see things and the honest yet comedic tone they use to voice their observations. I would recommend reading this from start to finish, in the order the poems are printed, to feel the full impact of the collection. Adcock portrays a childhood that I do not think many children get to experience nowadays; the freedom, wildness and danger, and (with hindsight) the stupidity. A belief that the world will not hurt them, even though it is hurting others around them. Adcock writes about the Second World War in a realistic yet beautifully moving way. No exaggerated drama, she just gently tells of how it was; yet her words still carry a punch to the gut. I get the feeling child Fleur did not like her parents very much, especially her Mother. Yet it is a complicated relationship as the threads of admiration are visible in some of the poems, eg 'Ambulance Attendant'. This was one of my favourite poems in the collection, the portrait she paints of her Mother is so clear yet convoluted with emotions. I also enjoyed 'Rangiwahia', especially the last two stanzas. 'My First Letter', 'Fake Fur' and 'Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar' also stood out for me. One of my favourite lines, and one that I feel resonates through the whole collection, and is why Fleur Adcock is so good: "Being scared of bombs was just for grown-ups."

[Te · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes to poetry, yes to a life in poems, and yes to this collection. Poems about your childhood moving around the blitz, finding a diaphragm pre-marriage in the 60s (?) and talking to your toddler granddaughter via Skype with the picture of your great-grandmother by your side. Yes. This is very, very good.