Those who have attended the same poetry readings with me where I get to recite will tell you there is a poem I love to read. I have read that poem so many times I sometimes think under the right conditions I can blurt it without referring from the notes - but I insist on reading it because I love how it is written. It's an insightful but tragic piece by artist Gary Cummiskey titled 'And We Watch'. It is one of few painful post-'94 poems I know because it unashamedly peels scabs from festering wounds; just as they are about to heal. That might be the poem I love to read in many poetry readings but it's not the only poem by Cummiskey that I adore; actually I love far more poems than I can admit here. Let me just share three lines from 'And We Watch' so you can get to understand why I think Cummiskey is one of the best poets of our generation - I'm not sure what generation is that, but if you are living today, best believe I'm talking about your time:.
'And we watch the township lesbian being gang-raped, this will cure her and teach her to appreciate cock.../ And we watch the drunken mother hysterical because while she was busy getting laid outside the shebeen her child was butchered for muti.../ And we watch the torture and beatings continue in Harare.../ And we watch the girl in the backroom sticking a knitting needle up her hole/'.
I'll stop right here. And now you might have a clue why this poem speaks to me - not because it speaks about Zimbabwe but it speaks about human rights. It is taken from a collection titled 'today is their creator'.
But today's review is not for 'today is their creator' but for a collection so disarmingly pretty I jest that it is the Mona Lisa or something Pablo Picasso could have offered the world. In the past Cummiskey has given the world plenty of words to ponder and when I finally got my hands on this tiny chapbook which can be read in one five minutes sitting I really felt something - you know that kick in he gut. Interesting enough, I might not be able to write a thousand words about a book with 78 000 words but under the right influence I can write a thousand words about a chapbook with a handful of poems of which none goes beyond seven lines. Yes, you heard me right, seven lines. And you thought you know a sonnet. But Cummiskey has a way of impregnating his sonnets with so much va-va-voom they read like brides awaiting a suitor. You just have a feeling they are whispering 'take me somewhere'. They read like blurbs.
'At the stop
street
a leaf
lands
on
my windscreen'
And you start re-enacting the scenario. Yes, because six out of ten people have had similar experiences. And it brings back memories flooding of what happened next the last time it happened to you: you probably moved a wiper or thought of a parking ticket. And believe me I didn't quote the poem I published the whole poem.
'Listening to
Amy
Winehouse,
sipping
morning coffee'
Damnit! So I am not going to quote more than these two nameless poems because as I say, if I went further I will have quoted the whole chapbook with its 12 pages. Yes, you heard me right, twelve pages like Jesus Christ's disciples or a dozen of eggs. This is classical Cummiskey; no-holds barred, honest to god, undiluted, bitter like bile and sweet like honey. Well, I don't intend to write a poem of my own but I am afraid this review has already amassed more words than the whole 'Thunder on the highway' book.
Now I know Cummiskey's work intimately. And it's just that this is not the space for such a comprehensive overarching review. Actually under the right influence and proper nudging I can give you 5 000 words on Cummiskey's work if you promise you'll read and comment on. I can now relate a poem he recited some time ago which every time I think about I paraphrase. It had something to do with the poet hearing water splashing loudly from a flat above his own; and noticing that they were gushing from a bathtub the poet said his first thought was that the lady upstairs was making love to a crocodile. That's an anecdote I live with. It was a poem once recited to applause and gape.
So, about 'Thunder on the highway' I can't even say go grab yourself a copy because I'm not sure there is a copy for you to grab. The one I have is 17 of 50; like a Picasso or a Rembrandt bought at an art auction. This is my Picasso and maybe the poet can get you yours - I wouldn't know but try him. As a poet Cummiskey never disappoints, he paints with ink and is not afraid to say exactly how he feels - which reminds one of bards Vonani Bila and Alan Finlay on his 'found poems'.
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