Twist by Bruce Parkinson Spang

Twist by Bruce Parkinson Spang is published by Warren Publishing

I always really enjoy confessional, or autobiographical, poetry and, to be honest, a lot of the time I find poetry that isn’t personal to be – bluntly – irrelevant. I mean, to me, of course. All poetry is irrelevant to someone, somewhere… As I say in my live solo show BALD PERSONALITY DISORDER: “There’s no one in the world who thinks we need more poets”. And though that’s obviously not true in any actual sense, I suppose I do agree with it as regards poets who aren’t using poetry to express and explain and record. Thankfully – for me, for Bruce Parkinson Spang (great surname) and for the publishers of his who sent me this copy of Twist that was possibly meant for someone else – this collection isn’t one of those texts I would see as irrelevant.

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Spang’s poetic style is relatively uncomplex, but uncluttered, clear, direct.

These are visions and depictions of moments – some now, some in the past – looking over a life that has, latterly, found more of itself to be happy about.

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The childhood depicted in Twist is one riddled with Middle American picket fences, functional alcoholism, corporal punishment, tragedy and repression, which moves through to an early adulthood seeking to copy these models of living but in a way that’s a little less cruel, all of which is followed by a major and life changing epiphanic mid-life understanding of self: Spang – despite marriage, a child, a heteronormative home and social life – is a gay man, and comes out, moves out, and becomes a much happier and self-actualising person, with the Spang of the present happy, satisfied and enjoying his retirement with a set of adorable dogs and a husband-lover he adores.

This is inspirational writing, in a way, certainly the ability to find and maintain and enjoy a satisfying and “true” life. The childhood world that Spang grows up in is hostile to difference, hostile to care, really. It’s all cookie cutter behaviours and expectations. 1950s sexualities and 1950s attitudes, none of which are kind.

Spang writes in ‘Photos of My Father as a Boy’, p. 77: “I tired to look right–to marry, have kids, / get jobs bigger than I was–to pull the knot / of the tie […] For thirty years, I kept wearing the tie, / the shirt, the slacks, and the jacket […] thinking that all together, / they’d make me the man I was supposed to be”

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There are some lovely phrases and lots of clear descriptions of place and people.

Spang writes several of pieces referring to and remembering a classmate from his schooldays who was also (then) a closeted gay man, who later killed himself, it is implied because of the homophobic world he found himself living in. Spang (or the narrator Spang employs, who is presumed/implied to be autobiographical throughout) mourns this man, even though he only found out about the suicide a decade after its action, which happened when they were both in their late 40s.

From timelines discussed elsewhere in the collection, the reader knows this was when Spang himself was coming to terms with his sexuality, though his own internal and external coming out wasn’t until [even] later in life than his former schoolmate’s. The regret isn’t just for the lost friend, but for his own lost life, too.

And though the daughter from his marriage does appear in the writing a few times, there is a conspicuous absence of the daughter’s other parent in the narrative of the collection; Spang’s moving on from his (first) marriage is presented in a solely constructive light, a movement towards something good rather than a movement away from something bad. The marriage itself remains hidden, and although Spang makes it clear he wasn’t dating and sleeping with men until he had moved on from the marriage, there aren’t really many moments set in his child-rearing home, which is particularly clear given how many later moments there are discussing, happily, taking care of dogs. Is this discretion? Is this because there’s nothing in that marriage that matters, now, to the person that Spang has become? Is it simply not interesting or not relevant? Maybe it’s all three? And maybe this is something Spang has already explored in one of his other books? I suppose, perhaps, I’m merely looking for this because I have a small child and spend huge amounts of my time thinking about what it means to have a small child. Then again, I don’t write about it that much, either…

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The message of the poems in this collection, then, is the importance of being true to self. Of the importance of ditching repression (emotional, sexual, personal) and living in a more authentic way. Ditch the pragmatism and be who you are.

But what if you don’t really know who you are? What if you love the idea of finding out but it just doesn’t really feel like a possibility due to the need to be pragmatic?

I hate being pragmatic. I feel like I spend way too much time being pragmatic, when all being pragmatic does it makes life shitter and smaller and more pointless. I’ve very recently restarted full time work as a pragmatic decision, but it just basically means the vast majority of the waking hours of my weekdays (which is the vast majority of my waking hours) feels like a colossal waste of time. Before, I would consistently get 2-6 hours a week where I could think and be and hope and plan, but that’s all just gone, it seems. Pragmatically gone, indefinitely. Pragmatically making decisions that make me so miserable I don’t see the point in even waking up, if I’m just going to be treading water indefinitely. Living through not in the moment.

Living through not in is no way to be.

Spang writes: “I’ve been told there’s a language / where only the now, the isness / of is, is spoken, when what has been / and what will be, all of your masks / of time, cease to matter.” – from ‘Elegy for Time’, p. 65.

Does Spang offer hope or narrative that – with attention and self-care – one can (could?) (will?) make it to an elevated level of selfhood? Achieve self-actualisation, contentment, personhood? But what if the trawl through all the time to get there simply doesn’t feel worth it? What if the meaninglessness of an empty and unfulfilling life with the promise of betterment at a later date feels like a fool’s gamble?

The people who save for a retirement that they become too physically diminished to actually enjoy? The people who limit themselves to nothing but toil in life in the belief of an idealised angelic afterlife? Is there much of a difference between the two?

Am I – who would love to be living somewhere near to a large body of water with a significantly lower cost of living than London doing things for money that don’t feel either morally or literally degrading but continues “pragmatically” not doing that “for now”… am I as ignorant and foolish as the kind of person who believes in a “render unto Caesar” type, repressive and limiting “opium for the masses” type, of docile Christianity, a person who doesn’t meaningfully live because they have convinced themselves that joy and comfort is for the afterlife only??? Maybe I am, I suppose. And I’d hold that kind of thinking in sneering contempt, perhaps because of this synergy. Because I’m doing it too. I’m doing it too.

Trapped by the picket fence mentality but in an economic situation where even a tiny garden feels like – is, really – an impossibility… What a fucking waste of a life. What the absolute fuck am I fucking doing with myself!?!?!?

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scott manley hadley aside (in a way), Twist really is a beautiful, engaging and personal collection.

There are lots of other charming poems about memory and memorialising in here, and one I was tempted to quote in full is titled “Useless”, another great one towards the end is called “First Date After Coming Out at 48”, but these are just two highlights of many.

It’s a pleasureable and open text, not hiding its heart and its personhood behind artifice or complexity, but warmly and directly stating who and how Spang’s world and life is.

Twist is a really enjoyable read.

Twist by Bruce Parkinson Spang is published by Warren Publishing – more details here