The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: Ella Frears

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

Frank discovers Ella Frears at a motorway services and shares some intimate notes. Collection referenced: Shine, Darling by Ella Frears Poems referenced: Midpoint by Ella Frears The Film by Ella Frears

Hello and welcome to a brand new series of Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. Let me let you into a technique of mine. Whenever I get a collection of poems by a single poet who I don't know, I will read through it, scribbling stuff on the poems but I will go back to the title page and I write sort of my general thoughts my big sweeping ideas about this poet I'm making them sound grand but they're not things I normally share verbatim although they might get sort of mingled into these podcasts a bit. However, today I thought I'd just read what I've written just straight from the page. Just this little bit at the front of a book I was given called Shine, Darling, by a poet called Ella Frears, who I was unfamiliar with. And this is what I wrote, as far as my general notes is concerned concerned on the front page of the book.

Spiky, sweary, funny, tragic, unsettling and yet joy inducing was the first thing I wrote. And then she has an extra mile sensibility rushing past the obviously poetic and looking on the higher shelves. Really? I mean, what a lovely turn of phrase I had on that day. Not afraid to celebrate art, but does it in a rug pulling way? There are some poems about fine art and stuff in the collection. Now, here's a question. Can prose be poetry? Question mark. Yes, is my conclusion. And finally, the book is not just gathered separates. It has a distinctive and compelling voice. It's clever, kind and detached.

compelling voice. It's clever, kind and detached. Now, if I was writing this for publication, I don't think I'd end clever, kind and detached. It makes it sound like a failing, the detached element. I don't think it is at all. I was sort of blown away by Shine Darling by Ella Frears so I thought I'd share a couple of the poems with you I've only just discovered this poet and this book myself and so it's still fresh paint as far as I'm concerned but let's just go for it I want to start off with a poem called Midpoint which was one of the ones that blew me even further away than than many of the the other poems in the book midpoint i'm going to read you the first stanza in fact i think i'm just going to read you the first line initially because it's quite a beginning i'm an inconsolable piglet inconsolable piglet now when you get an opening line like that I'm an inconsolable piglet that might put some people off might have put me off I don't know quite what it means but also

I don't want piglets early on in a poem it sounds too cute and lovely but there are three ways to respond with a challenging opening line you can either walk away and try another poem there's plenty more in in the book you can try and kick the door down on on a first line i.e you can sort of squeeze your head to try and get the meaning out or i think this is the best method just keep going going. You might not understand the first line, the first stanza of a poem, but you might find the key to the whole thing hidden under another lighter line in the poem. So keep going. Anyway, here's that first stanza.

I'm an inconsolable piglet rooting for lumps in the snow. Incrementally, it falls a blanket of hours across the boarded up restaurant. Now, I love, I have to say, the fact that the piglet is rooting for lumps in the snow. Who knows what that means at this stage? But I feel like maybe lumps of meaning anyway incrementally it falls a blanket of hours across the boarded up restaurant that's beautiful isn't it that to me saying that the snow is as a blanket of hours like you could measure time by the snow's inchage like counting the rings of a tree the depth of the snow tells you how long

it's been snowing and also in the first hand to the boarded up restaurant i think we all know those of us who have lived through 2020 that there is something intrinsically sad about a boarded-up restaurant, the breaking of bread, humans enjoying the company of other humans, all ceased, the sense in there of there being empty tables and upturned chairs and the lights off, that sadness. So then the next, I'm just going to read you this poem because it's, oh man, I'm going to do a stanza and look, never mind what I'm going to do, just stick around. Next stanza. Daylight has eased off, but the neon green strip along the edge of the petrol station has picked up the slack i've never seen a collar try so hard now that daylight has eased off that suggests a speaker doesn't it who really doesn't want to be

operating in bright light that says something about the mood of this oh it's eased off thank goodness for that darkness is coming and consequently they're sort of resentful of the light on on the petrol station what a beautiful image that is though that light that has picked up the slack i've never seen a collar try so hard you know when you get a light when it's starting when you get into dusk and the lights start to really sparkle and and stand out there's a real melancholy about these these first two stanzas i'm going to read you the the third thoughts like water take the route of least resistance mine course up and down the motorway i shove a scotch egg into my mouth now there's a lot there isn't there thoughts like water take the route of least resistance

that's fabulous you know where water that they always say it takes the route of of least risk it'll just run anywhere that that's easy for it and her thoughts are like that they're going where they will if you like i'm assuming that they go as she said they call something down the motorway i'm assuming they do that so that they can dwell on departure and destination what they've come from and where they're going to the poem is called midpoint remember so it seems like someone who's making a significant journey perhaps from one place to another and and the use of motorway they're coursing up and down the motorway gives us a bit more help as well the restaurant the petrol station now make a bit more sense we seem to be i don't know maybe stranded at a services in in the snow I

should say by the way that um the lines on the page they're not neatly stacked they um zigzag from one side of the page to the other if I was really amongst friends now who I could trust, I'd probably say that they swerve like a car in snow. But I think some of you would go away if I said that. So I'm going to say that they zigzag like her thoughts, taking the route of least resistance. They are zigzagging from the past to the present, to this moment, from the place of departure to whatever a destination is and the motorway services seem to be breaking this long journey as i said they seem to be at

the midpoint that we're we're hearing about the next three stanzas i'm just going to give you in in a lump and i think this is a thinking back to the life she is leaving it seems looking backwards off the a30 there i am swimming onto the fat lip of a cliff refusing another lift from the maths teacher further on i'm aimless on the harbour front on the dunes throwing punches in a novelty captain's hat sharing a cigar with the boy my best friend likes i mean come on this is if that is growing up by the seaside, if ever it was described, isn't he? And everything, at first when she said, looking back, I'm on the A30, I panicked a bit because I thought, don't make this too specific, Ella,

or you'll alienate me. It'll just be your story. It won't be our story anymore. But she gets away with it, I think think because the A30 well every road every road number for me has got a dark melancholy about it I don't know why the B113 the M4 they've all oh god it just they sound like a million human lives have experienced sadness and despair on their hard shoulders. If I'd have been a more spontaneous speaker, I would have come up with something about crying on their shoulders, etc. But it was beyond me. It's got a sort of a William Blake-like

Songs of Innocence and Experience about it. So looking backwards, it begins. There I am, swimming under the fat lip of a cliff refusing another lift from the maths teacher the swimming under the fat lip of a cliff sounds like a beautiful idyllic childhood memory of swimming in the sea but the choice of image of the fat lip of a cliff has a hint of violence about it that that that a child would choose that as a metaphor from its own experience it makes you a little unsettled obviously the maths teacher sounds like a an ominous character offering this young girl a lift on a regular basis but what about this for growing up

by the sea further on i'm aimless on the harbour front i mean i would like that on a t-shirt i'm aimless on the harbour front fantastic and the rhythm of it i'm aimless on the harbour front on the dunes throwing punches and a novelty captain's hat. There's the violence and innocence juxtaposition. Again, throwing punches in a novelty captain's hat and sharing a cigar with the boy my best friend likes. I don't think anyone, in my experience, I don't think anyone actually enjoys a cigar. And so they're only smoke for image reasons.

In this context, I think I'm grown up. I can do this without being sick is the message. And also that with the boy that a friend likes, something about the cigar in the mouth, sharing it, the mixing of saliva, it all feels like a precursor to sort of more intimate things we've had that three stanzas of flashback and now i think we're back we're back at the services and and she says in the toilets I'm in the mirror sobbing over a row of sinks. The soap dispensers dribble silky puddles on the faux marble counter.

The road ahead is dark. Snowy banks on either side. The ghosts of verges past. Leaning against a pump, I watch the red lights head onwards I mean it's very it's very romantic image I love late night motorway services at the best of times but here she has really made the whole thing electric in the toilets crying and looking in the mirror. Or she says, in the toilets, I'm in the mirror, sobbing over a row of sinks. That, to me, is that key I was looking for for the first line. That's why she's an inconsolable piglet.

You know, when you cry to the point where your eyes get all small and puffy and over pink, I think she's looking in the mirror and seeing an inconsolable piglet, which I think makes me like the speaker even more because it's a sort of disparaging image. It's taking away the sort of romance and nobility of this person leaning against a petrol pump, watching the red lights head onwards. I also, and this is a small thing

but it's the small things of course that that make poems special silky puddles is such a brilliant description of those drips that you get from soap dispensers and we've all seen them and it just makes me happy that that is so accurate. Sometimes in a poem, just accuracy is enough for me. Although there's plenty more here, of course. The road ahead is dark. I mean, that's just, yeah, she can't see what's coming. She can't read what's coming. It's scary.

I think there's something tremendously romantic about leaning against a pump. I watch the red lights head onwards. That to me is like modern British poetry. Petrol stations, motorway services, red lights. That's where you find the real pain. Okay, I'm going to continue gonna continue now we don't know who she's speaking to at this stage but i think it becomes apparent would you mind sir hitting a

pause on the cctv running it backwards so that i might watch the sky getting a taste of its own cold medicine. Would you mind, sir, hitting pause on the CCTV? Now, every garage forecourt has CCTV, and I think what she's doing here is asking that lonely guy that you always see in late-night garages at services to run the CCTV backwards. Watch this guy getting a taste of its own cold medicine so that she can see the snow going back upwards into the sky so the sky knows what

it's like to be snowed upon it's i tell you what i think i think this is where the recovery begins in this poem she allows herself at this point what I would call what is called a poetic conceit. It's quite a clever idea that she doesn't back off from the sky getting its snow back on a reverse CCTV. It's flamboyant. It's an image that shows great self-confidence that she'll go for that. And it sort of says to me you know what you've still got it you're leaving something behind but it isn't your poetry isn't your specialness isn't your original thinking that's going with you and it ends with one last stanza which I think oh god I love there's a particular phrase in this I love more than once

I've slowed to take a long drink of someone else's collision I mean we've all done that on the motorway haven't we you've seen you see a crash and you just wanna have a little bit of extra information for the anecdote later more than once I've slowed to take a long drink of someone else's collision. Madam, filling up your dusty Peugeot, it's okay to stare. So this now seems to be another customer at the garage. Madam, filling up your dusty Peugeot, it's okay to stare come let me wipe my puffy eyes on your trouser leg I think now that the recovery is complete she has she's got her own collision to stare at whatever has happened to her this night and she looks piggy-eyed from crying she She's leaning on a petrol pump. It's snowing. But she sort of defiantly displays her sadness.

She trumpets her desolation. She's not closed and afraid now. She's not honest and open and okay with who she is. She can write a poem about it. So why not call that woman over from the Peugehow and just say, yeah, you're staring. Guess what? This is my night and this is my life and I'm good with it. I think it's a really beautiful poem.

It ends for me like, I don't know if you ever watch any old Charlie Chaplin silent movies where he'd lose everything, everything would go wrong and he'd walk off bowed into the distance and the sort of aperture would close on him as he disappeared and then just before he disappeared you'd see him stop and sort of shrug a bit realign himself and he'd get his bounce back and then he'd walk off with it with a jaunty walk and that feels to me that the speaker in this poem, be it Ella Frears or some construction that Ella Frears has come up with, the speaker is having that experience of, you know what, it's going to be OK. That moment when you're doing something, changing your life in some way, something, changing your life in some way, where the fear of the adventure morphs into the sort of excitement of the adventure. I feel that at the end of this poem, which makes me joyous. I said

I was going to do two poems from this book. I haven't actually kept an eye on the time, but I'm going to do it anyway if it's a bit longer than usual. Poetry and clocks they don't work that well together so once I start reading this stuff I'm not looking at a timer that just seems wrong. Listen I've been doing homeschooling during the lockdown era and my son was doing a lesson about pollination and pollinators and all the various forms of pollination i thought it was just bees i'll be straight with you but there's all sorts of way it goes and one of them is the burr the thing b-u-r-r the thing that sort of sticks to animals they are pods of seeds but they're covered in spiky, clingy bits. And they stick to animals and animals wander off with them

and take them somewhere else. And that is how the seed is dispersed. This next poem I'm going to read from Ella Frears, from this same book, Shine Darling, that's what it did to me. It has stuck to me and with some discomfort and some spikiness and now i'm going to disperse its seeds to you yes sir it's called the film and here is the first stanza the sun was shining as we ambled around campus, stopping boys and men and asking them to hit me across the face. Now, it starts off so the sun was shining as we ambled around campus and the whole thing campus to me from my memories of of my campus days it sounds very safe and

enclosed and almost womb like and the sun was shining we so she she's not the speaker is not on her own it feels good stopping boys and men as soon as the men are when she's stopping boys I'm okay and then men is like the beginning of the stain in this first stanza which to me completely blossoms in a dark way when she says and asking them to hit me across the face and it's got a real trajectory this poem it really moves you along. You want to know what's going to happen very quickly. The last two lines, I mean, they are shocking. Breaking the line on hit me, because what it says is,

and asking them to hit me, new line, across the face. I think you're hoping that there might be some sort of ambiguity, some minor high jinx after Hit Me, but across the faces, it's just a film. We'll see. I'm carrying on. They all refused at first, but we explained it was art and necessary. So they slapped me one after another. That, that they all initially refused is quite a relief at first. And it's lovely that we explained it was art and necessary. It's one of those very earnest student phrases. You can hear it being said it was art and necessary. And it suggests they're in control at this point.

But the slapping continues. It's still uncomfortable. So they slapped me is a line that you can't read without feeling some unease. And I want to know more about the wee at this stage. Is there a gang of them? Are the boys there who could handle it if anything went bad? Is that sexist? I don't know.

I just wanted to have some security with her on this experiment okay next answer I realized I had to harden my eyes provoke each boy did a comedy slap palm to face apologize before and. It was hot and bright. Again, she's pushing me and pulling me back here because the fact that she has to harden her eyes and provoke them, I don't like that. This is playing with fire. It's getting edgier. I like that each boy did a comedy slap, palm to face,

apologise before and after. It's all nice, but it was hot and bright. At the beginning, the sun was shining, but it was hot and bright to me now sounds like an intensification of the experience. We flirted with a geographer whose slap was light his fingers just brushing my cheek as though turning my face to the side to see my profile we had about and then the stanza ends there so i'll come to that last bit in a mini again we're softened up a bit here by the gentle geographer i I think. They flirt with him, they get more and more confident, and that makes me uneasy, that growing confidence. But as I say, it ends, we had about, and then the line continues into the next stanza.

And this, as many of you will know, is an example of enjambment, E-N-J-A-M-B-M-E-N-T. And it's when a line, a sentence continues onto the next line, in this case, onto the next stanza. And the effect it has on this poem is to accelerate it because it moves you onto the next stanza. And all the remaining stanzas, there are another four or five, they all end with enjambment until the final one. So I'm going to read these in a block because it has its own pace, this poem. Remember, we left stand before we had about.

We had about 20 guys on film. My friend's boyfriend turned up and we asked if he would do it. He kissed her and stood to face me. My friend pressed record and said go. And I was laughing, had forgotten to settle my face. My left cheek slightly pink from a day of slapping. I was not ready for his backhand. Quick and strong.

A strange noise as though he'd knocked the laugh right off me a thicker pain than a sting an immediate loss of breath for a moment we were silent and I looked at my friend whose hand had flown to her cheek the camera's red light still blinking and I knew we would never watch the film, that I would feel sick and guilty as long as the bruise lasted, longer, having asked for what wasn't mine. Like I say, this poem has lived with me. These last stanzas, the poem, when I say the poem falls to pieces, I mean in a good way. It's upsetting and unsettling and you kind of don't want it to happen. Poems like these, they feel like a really important phone call on a bad line. So you have to do your best with the gaps and do some of the piecing together during and some after.

So you need to try and, what is going on here? Why is it so upsetting? At the end of the poem, that last sentence, which, let me find it again. I would feel sick and guilty as long as the bruise lasted longer having asked for what wasn't mine it's a difficult line i think and it's what i would call what i do call a homework line a line that you want to go away and think about. Scott needs a bit of work, needs some attention. Anyway, I go before my horse to Marky. So it's all still bubbly and fun at the beginning of this section. She's laughing. I think the idea of having forgotten to settle her face is a comical idea, as is her having a pink cheek, as she puts it, from a day of slapping.

It sounds still a bit like clowning at this stage. And the choice of pink rather than having a red cheek, it keeps it, and again, I'm going to slightly stereotype, but it keeps it girly day out rather than bloody and dark. The turn for me is I was not ready. It's just horrible. And the backhand, the fact it was a backhand, you know, that lovely moment with the geographer when he seemed to be just looking at her face. A backhand is, it's dismissive, a backhand. It's sort of thrown away. And it also includes suddenly knuckles and other bony alternatives to the palm.

There's something horrible about it. I can't find any solace in the title of the poem. No, it isn't just a film anymore. It's become something grim. And you know what? It would not have shocked me so much, that backhand, if the guy hadn't kissed his girlfriend first. It's that sort of sex and violence combination here, that sense of ownership, of kissing his girlfriend and then turning to this other woman to hit her. And the camera person calling go makes her sort of doubly complicit. She's introduced this backhand guy. It's like he's broken their friend thing. Everything, though, has collapsed.

I'm talking about this being brilliant. Obviously, it's dark and horrible, but it's brilliantly dark and horrible. There's two great images to be brutal, if you'll forgive the pun. He knocked the laugh right off me now maybe it's because i'm a comedian by trade but that is horrible the way violence changes the tone ping like that the way that happens all the time and it happens in this poem all the sunshine references have gone now the whole project is destroyed by this it was based on a on a pretense this being here it was about politeness and pretending and now the boyfriend he spoiled what was a sort of

it was a sort of student reel if any students listening will forgive me rather than being real it was sort of student reel sort of enthusiastic and a bit naive. And this guy has changed it. And the second image of the brutality, a thicker pain than a sting. Wow, a thicker pain. Now, the hit isn't about the pink cheek. It isn't even about flesh. Now, it's about bone and brain and tongue. It's deeper and it's thicker.

It's sort of violence from the bass clef now rather than the treble. And we don't get his response. We don't know. He disappears after he's, I don't mean he disappears physically, but we don't hear any more about the boyfriend. He's not relevant once he's actually dealt the blow. It seems to me to be about the two women. And I think the outstands are slightly rescues this terrible.

It says we were silent. There's no apology, no aftercare from the guys. He doesn't exist anymore. For me, it's the look exchange between these two women, if it is even a look. But the friend who had kissed the, I'm going to call him the assailant now, she'd kissed him, she'd said go. She seems to regain the unity with the speaker when it says a hand had flown to her cheek. Solidarity, I think, is regained at that point. The friend reaching for her cheek makes them, it unifies them. It's suddenly they're two women responding together. And that's why we don't get his response I think it doesn't matter about

him anymore he's the outsider now I think the kiss made the speaker the outsider but now the speaker and and her friend who's on the camera they seem to be rejoined. They're two friends again. Now, this last line, the homework line, the speaker feels guilty and sick. And because she says, having asked for what wasn't mine. Now, you, I think you should all have a think about what it means. That's the joy of lines like this. For me, I think she means there are women whose life is this, is about being hit. And she now feels bad when it's got real.

She feels bad for playing at it. And I think that's why the bruise she says the bruise in particular would make her feel guilty because it's a sort of false badge of pain that she'll be carrying one that she asked for that that that wasn't hers and I don't think it's we can also shrug off the idea that this is the her friend's boyfriend and and maybe this will happen to her. Maybe it's happening to her. That kiss now seems a darker, more controlling thing to me. It's upsetting, this poem.

I can't shrug it off, but that doesn't mean it isn't brilliant, of course. I can't shrug it off, but that doesn't mean it isn't brilliant, of course. I would recommend you very much to read Shine Darling, the collection by Ella Frias, published in 2020. There is much brilliance in it. I'm just going to read you one last bit to end. I'm picking up the book and there's a chunk in it of bits all put together called passivity, electricity and acclivity. And this is what I've written. As I say, I write notes on title pages. This is what I've written.

I'm going to I'm going to chuck it at you. Fabulous patchwork, callback, encrusted crosswire of tragic encounters and spy stories, and always the shadow of her near-abduction when she was ten. There is so much life in Shine Darling by Ella Free as I urge you to check it out. So, thank you so much for listening to this episode of My Poetry Podcast. Don't forget to press subscribe on your favourite podcast app so you never miss an episode. Imagine it.

And if you enjoyed it, if I know, please do rate, review and subscribe. See you next week. Oh, and PS, there aren't enough PSs in podcasts. If you like this, you can listen to The Frank Skinner Show every Saturday morning at 8am on Absolute Radio. That is also available, of course, as a podcast.

It's got less poetry in it than this, but more laughs