Christopher Wiseman is part of that rare breed of writers who crafts verse that almost seems designed specifically for people who hate poetry. Does Wiseman write poetry? Yes: it’s got the basic stanzas and the short lines and though it will disappoint those who insist that if it doesn’t rhyme then it really isn’t poetry, the lack of rhyme is also a selling point. It helps keep the tone conversational:
“Check the laundry room
during the day and you’ll see them,
washer and dryer, standing quietly
next to each other, a matched pair
minding their own business.”
Who can’t relate to that introduction to a poem with an equally relatable title, “In the Basement.” Except maybe the super-rich who don’t have a laundry room, a washer, dryer or a basement for that matter. But then Wiseman’s poetry is not for the super-rich. Or the academics. Or the scholars. Or the members of the prize jury, apparently, as Wiseman remains suspiciously unacknowledged by those in charge of handing out awards. Wiseman writes for the people who know where the washer and dryer sit and, more importantly, he writer for the people whose imagination immediately “gets” the line that ends the above stanza:
“At night it’s different.”
This example is Wiseman at his best in a nutshell. He sets up a normal, everyday, almost boring situation. What the reader doesn’t know, perhaps, is that Wiseman has chosen these particular events or moments or situations for a purpose: to preserve their meaning through the prism of memory. He writes from memory and that means that the normal, every and potentially boring situation has had time to expand in his mind. Rather than being caught up in the emotions of the moment, time has afforded him the opportunity to take a mundane set-up like a simple description of a laundry room and enhance it so that it is worth commemorating in verse. “In the Basement” moves from the rather nondescript imagery of its opening stanza to consider the mystery of things taken for granted. The imagery in the second stanza turns macabre and almost menacing despite using words like “switches and cords” and “beads of moisture.” What had been one of the most unlikely of subjects to commemorate in verse suddenly is suddenly an audacious work of imagination.
Something similar happens in “Dracula.” The poem begins with a stanza filled with imagery of the vampire story with which everyone is familiar. The poet adds nothing new or unique and doesn’t even allow Dracula to become an actual character. Instead, the poem using his name as its title merely sits there reminding us of absolutely everything we already associated with Dracula’s Transylvania home. And then the situation twists right before the reader’s eyes, but so fast most will never see happening. The rest of the poem introduces a brand new way of considering the Dracula myth, pitting the strength and legend of what we already know and have just been reminded of against what we already know, but never really thought seriously about. Because if he had thought about it like the speaker of the poem, it would probably no longer be part of the vampire.
It’s not fancy writing. Neither of these nor others in Wiseman’s body of work requires the reader to cut through the jungles like Indiana Jones in pursuit of his next treasure. Wiseman’s poems are basically of the “here’s a story I wanna tell” variety and if you want to find hidden meaning and great symbolic codes, that is your privilege. But you don’t need to. You just need to be aware that what may seem like a topic not even worth writing about at the beginning is almost surely to change into something that makes you look glad the poet decided to commemorate it for posterity by the end. Hate poetry? You’ll love Wiseman.
