"Reading your comics in Eype" by Chrissy Williams

I sometimes like a poem without having much of a clue why. Such was the case when I read a poem by Chrissy Williams in "The Rialto 81" (2014). What drew me into this piece was that there were parts I understood (and liked), and other parts whose meaning I knew I could look up. I've read her poems before. Some (e.g. from Adventures in Form) I don't like at all, whereas others (e.g from Flying into the bear) have a freshness that marks her out as a name to follow. I've heard her read - she reads well. I felt that there was enough overlap of our sensibilities to spend time on the poem.

Firstly then, is there a stable (perhaps imagined) world behind this poem? There is indeed a place in Dorset called Eype, and it has a beach. The events of the poem could easily belong to a single narrative without needing to change their order. There's a fixed viewpoint. In the title it says "your comics". Readers soon realise that "you" refers to the owner of the comics, though later it seems that "you" is the comic's author too. Perhaps 2 different people are being referred to, perhaps not. The poet's written up some thoughts about poetry and comics on the Rialto site, saying that her partner "writes (but does not draw) comics". Ah. Lines 3-4 refer to the comic -

You'd nudged it towards my rucksack with a grin when I was trying to pack my bedroll up at midnight

What's the significance of the timing? I don't know, though Jesus said to Lazarus, "Get up, take your bedroll, start walking". If the comic is thought of as a message, a nudged hint, we need to know about the comic characters. I had to look up the names. Juggernaut is a Marvel Comics supervillain, a bit like The Hulk. Hope is a female superhero, "the first mutant to be born after the Decimation, an event in which the Scarlet Witch uses her reality-altering superpower to turn all but 198 of the world's mutants into regular, depowered humans. Hope Summers is an omega-level mutant with an ability of unspecified limits to manipulate and mimic the genes which are responsible for superhuman mutation". Juggernaut is unstoppable, exaggeratedly Male. Hope is an empathetic Female.

The persona, seeing dogs on the shore below ("the fisherman's line is being bothered by a mixed troupe of dogs") starts thinking about them - "is it just me who drags dogs into everything?", further encouraging the identification of the persona and poet. Perhaps "drags dogs into everything" is supposed to bring to mind "drags God into everything". The persona recalls how Superman's dog missed him when he went away. Is it this aspect of dogs that the persona drags in?

Dogs lead to Cats, then Children. After "[Superman] didn't want kids" there's a sudden switch - the persona changes the subject, feels cold, thinks "not yet, not yet" then there's

Please dogs, there's so much sea to write. Today, I just want to listen to it.

Given that these lines end the poem, I think we're entitled to read much into them. Why plead with the dogs? The persona is "in an armchair", the "fisherman sits tending his line" - i.e. they're both sitting, both thinking about lines. The fisherman (symbol of Christ, of hope - the poet's half Italian, so may be familiar with catholic symbolism) is disturbed by a "mixed troupe of dogs" (a Juggernaut is a wagon carrying statues of Hindu gods. Note also that the poem's first line is "I see Juggernaut's foot stamp down on San Francisco" - St Francis liked animals). Why "troupe" rather than "pack"? I don't know. The dogs are stopping a catch - "fisherman tending lines - fish - sea" corresponds to "poet tending lines - words - world". But the dogs' noise is also disturbing a more direct contemplation of the world by the poet.

In the Rialto article one of the lessons deduced from the comic world is that "economy of line is paramount ... Comics are at their most successful when the maximum effect is produced by every line and unnecessary lines are eliminated". This poem seems to follow that guideline. I've needed to mention just about all its details, except for the mysterious purple light.