Tim Morris responds to Martin Stannard's mode of reviewing poetry

Tim Morris sent this to share with you:



Upset

Upset is what nearly all these poems are about but it comes so neatly packaged my interest is no more than if the guy had told me Sainsbury's were out of his favourite coffee. (Martin Stannard in a review, 2004)

This afternoon Sainsbury's were out of my favourite coffee, in fact they
often are, the manager is hopeless and on more than one occasion when
I've cornered him to ask him about the coffee he gets a look on his face
and claims something needs his attention in Ready-Made Meals, which
if you ask me is a misdirection if not an outright lie, not that I eat ready-
mades often, too much aggro, pop open a packet of crisps and a can of lager
is more like it but Tuesday when I got the shopping home the crisps were
open and had gone soft and I keep meaning to bring them back to Sainsbury's,
back to the manager's attention, but it means a forty minutes' drive on and
off the motorway and the cones up by the heath and the new roundabout
and drivers who cannot grasp the concept that they are to keep moving once
they're in but yield to me if I'm in and they're not. Upset is not exactly the
term I'd use, more like a heightened awareness of insolence really, a revelation
that the young guy with his eyes set jaws clenched hands on the wheel is not
trying to get from A to B like me, doesn't have a favourite coffee, doesn't
need a ready-made meal, he just wants to circle the roundabout and cut
people off all afternoon, every afternoon, the shopping undone and the
takeaway uncollected and a smile gathering on his face as he watches me wait.