You’ll Never Be Anyone Else by Rachael Clyne

The title of Rachael Clyne’s fearless and mirthful poetry collection, You’ll Never Be Anyone Else, published by Seren, is the title of the last poem in the book and, for me, is the thread that binds the whole together. The poems explore identity, personal history and sexuality as well as domestic violence though not simply from the narrator’s point of view but also exposes the damage generally done by people’s attitudes to one another. Lit by humour and wit and peppered with phrases from many walks of life, it’s a rollicking read.

The first poem, Girl Golem (a recurring motif) is based on the Golem figure made from clay by Jewish rabbis to protect Jewish people from persecution. Truth is written on his forehead and God’s name on his tongue but in this case the figure is the narrator:

She was made as a keep-watch

in case new nasties tried to take them away.

The family called her tchotchkele, their little cnadle

said she helped to make up for lost numbers –

as if she could compensate for millions. 

But things don’t turn out as expected and the cnadle has ideas and drives of her own and When she turned eighteen/ she walked away, went in search of her own kind/ tore their god from her mouth. 

In the short but powerful poem Three Piece Suite the family has migrated carrying all their mental and emotional baggage and the poet imagines her mother as a rickety chair, her father as a wooden ironing board, her Grandma a leathery pouffe between which I, their tailor’s cushion, bristle with pins. We soon find external danger is already lurking in the childhood home in the poem Bedtime when the young narrator hears voices shouting behind the wall of her bedroom and she has to shout back that her DADDY’S A POLICEMAN (though he isn’t: he’s a tailor) 

The collection is full of close observation and gives many opportunities for dramatised vignettes.  Jew-a-lingo is one of these and hearing Rachael perform this witty piece last month in Exeter at Uncut Poets was a treat as if she’s written a theatre script for herself. But the fun in this poem eventually turns bitter when the narrator encounters intolerance and prejudice:

Lesson 4 – In social situations

When refused membership of local societies eg the gold club, apologise

If they call you Jew girl or ask what you do for Christmas, smile.

Choose only words that are Formica-smooth.

Never make a drama out of a trifle.

Never dominate the conversation,

Try not to interrupt. Try harder.

Beware, those colour-coded smiles conceal teeth. 

There’s the best friend who said You can’t let Jews in. They’ll only take over   and the problem of having a NOSE that grows with the lies you tell about us. There’s a trip to Odessa where her grandparents came from, a grief that must be carried like a baby and laugh out-loud poems about early attempts at both kinds of sex, a failed marriage. The poems are racy and courageous, flirty and sad, sharp and compassionate. 

The poet plays with other contemporary forms of writing: for example Dateroo is fun with its music-hall rhythms:

He’s her fitbit, her chocky cupcake.

She’s his favourite app, his tinny.

Clyne’s ear for the vernacular is relentlessly acute.  But, in the end:

Araldite is murder to unstick after she goes viral.

She scrolls down his My Top Pubes collection

Spots a close-up of her Brazilian with bird tatt. 

Another witty and self-scathing example is the pithy poignant prose poem Tripp Reviews my Past where All those hearts on the floor, you could sweep them up. … I wouldn’t give it a 1* let alone 3***.

 

One of my favourite poems is Ronnie Scott’s 1976 for the way it brings the club vibrantly to life with all the characters caught so deftly in a few words. It is just one example (among many) of what Tony Hoagland called “the mind in motion”. The register here is spot-on:

       Always that thrill as I stepped through the door.

Everyone left their lives with the hatchceck girl for the table-lamp

Smoky dark, for Blossom Dearie’s whine, Dizzie’s inflatable cheeks

and Tom Waits’ gravel tones singing: The piano’s bin drinking.

I love the ending because the tables are turned when you realise everyone is watching everyone else:

Soho was safe, because within hours of joining the staff,

the Maltese gangs, the strip-joint owners knew exactly

who I was and where I belonged.    

Her take on life as a conventional woman (Susan Expects to be Admired) , on marriage, domestic abuse (Take the Medicine, Her Mind is Snagged) and divorce and coming out as a lesbian thereafter are all fuelled by sharp wit and intelligence. Girl Golem survives it all with her (Girl Golem is Stranded in Marriage) and like a chorus wryly comments on the dramas:

 Now I’m the pisher, the alte cacker

I managed your three score and ten –

which comes from Girl Golem Looks Back. But that haunting final poem distils the essence of this fine collection with its wisdom and tenderness to others and perhaps to her self:

You’ll Never be Anyone Else

so you – yes you,
with your warts and wings
will just have to do.

Acceptance is your food
and shelter without which
you are brushwood

for any foul wind
that cares to blow.
Stop using the poison

bottle labelled ‘Drink me’
it’s not OK.
It’s that simple.

I didn’t say easy.

Here she is reading it herself:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCaTPiSetBY  

To quote Hoagland’s The Art of Voice again: The self may indeed be an uneasy coalition of impulses, influences, misinformation, and truth, but it is stubborn to survive and, in the end, it is loyal to its body, its identity, and its desire to dance another dance. Rachael Clyne has explored so many different voices in this engrossing collection and it’s fitting it ends with a nugget of her own hard-earned wisdom.

Here’s what Rachael herself said of this collection:  https://www.serenbooks.com/tag/youll-never-be-anyone-else/