a chronology of the most important events in his life
It starts with the cover. Nicola Deane has described it as “rough, edgy and seductive”. And that’s a perfect description of the kind of verse assembled by gary cummiskey in the 26 pages of “today is their creator”.
Then there’s a gun. Cummiskey doesn’t have a licence but he does seem pissed off enough to use it anyway. He’s pissed off with the state of the world, (”a half-burned steak gone rotten with global atrocities”), he’s pissed off with the passivity of the tv audience (”and we watch”), he’s pissed off with some bastard (”some bastard took my house keys”) and he’s even pissed off with today (”today/ you left and /will never/ return”).
But it’s not all bad. Cummiskey isn’t gnashing his teeth and wailing in the dark with this collection. There’s just enough spiky mordant humour to carry the reader past the outrage into genuinely poetic depths, a kind of surreal swamp word-world where everything is darkly poetic (”Harry Potter is voodoo/…My sleep is voodoo”).
And most impressive of all, beyond the fierce indignation that Cummiskey is clearly feeling about the turn of events in South Africa (”And we watch the township lesbian being gang-raped, this will cure her and teach her to appreciate cock”), beyond the hapless sense of being no more than a bystander in his own life (”I don’t get a mention”), beyond all the nightmarish dreaming (”of a rat/ a large rat”) Cummiskey still has the time and the sensitivity for “Soft words”:
Lying next to you
in silence as
the wind whips
the curtain aside
It’s this new found seductive quality that makes “today is their creator” Gary Cummiskey’s most mature and impressive collection of poetry to date. The only complaint is that at 26 pages it really is way too short.
aryan kaganof
isbn: 978-0-620-402820-8
Available directly from the publisher at R40 per copy, including postage.
E-mail dyehardpress@iafrica.com for purchase details.
July 11th, 2008 at 11:10 am
nothing like i thought it would be
it made me cry
it totally moved me
i admire the way G manages to “filter” emotion through his poems
BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!