by Ward, Mark
When I was asked to write a foreword to Thunder Alley, and had begun reading the manuscript, the poems brought that truth back to my mind. They have a clear, strong voice, and speak directly to the reader. In a world where the word ‘poetry’ typically causes fearful glances and a lull in conversation, where it is seen as an inaccessible art form written and read by a small self-styled elite, this book is refreshingly free of the problems and the baggage of definition. Whether teasing Geoffrey Hill’s sense of apocalyptic scale, or remembering a young friend’s painful accident, these poems are wide-ranging, lucid, and distinctly one man’s work, one man’s imagination, and one man’s reflections.
That is not to deny their universality, quite the contrary. There is a great sense for the things that matter in our minds – home, friends, the past, the future – and all of the pushing and pulling in life. But whether it’s the shrewish home of Mr Mercer that he escapes from beautifully or the worlds apart illuminated by a cigarette in ‘Junction 31’, for every disappointment, every sawdust bedsit with roaches underneath the fridge, there is an elation at community, commonality. It might be about the place you grew up, or the desire to rewrite the past despite ourselves. Poems like ‘Mrs Eccles Walks on Air’ show a kindred spirit, someone else aware of those magical flights of fantasy that can begin where you are most grounded, inspired and lifted by the world you were then a part of. There is intelligence, but also something far more important: warmth. The author is an interested observer, never afraid of an opinion or a statement of the obvious, and that makes them graceful monuments to the modern condition.
Yet: that’s not to say that this book is in any way about the better sides of human nature, or even optimistic. People are driven by fear as much as hope, and the ‘Thunder Alley’ sequence that the book is structured around is unflinching and forensic about the darker side of society – the lies we tell ourselves to avoid confronting a situation, the one-track mind that can lead to obsession and destruction, the horrible consequences of thoughtless actions. They are not easy poems to read, because we know this world, from the friend who got into a fight with the wrong people in a nightclub, to the news we see every day.
It is a book about specific places and people, and about everyone’s mind, a book that turns a keen and far-reaching eye on the worlds we each live in and invent for ourselves, a book about the private tragedies and triumphs of a life. The thousands upon thousands of tender folds in the mind that conceal innumerable personal reflections are each our own, and this book’s subject. They are stubbornly human in the face of inhumanity, and infused with that hint of the Romantic, where even as despair and emptiness is faced unflinchingly they rage utterly against the dying of the light. They are full of horror stories, pain, suffering, and delusions, not below the odd bit of gallows humour; and they are full of happiness, freedom; the imagination of a better world.
And how could any introduction neglect to mention the ‘Regrets’ that punctuate the poems, alternately funny and bittersweet, offering their more immediate pleasures while subtly reinforcing the structure of the book – alerting the reader to both a finished inspiration and a work-in-progress. We are aware of the poems as written records, protean until fixed on the page. It is at once an affirmation of the power of print, but with a sly nod to impermanence, change, and the author’s constant desire to improvise and revise.
Finishing this book, I reread it, and days later, was still thinking about many lines within it. The book comes together to form a complete picture of a man’s mind, and has the quality of memorable speech: the sounds of Thunder Alley and Mark Ward intermingle, and you feel they are in the same room, talking. I like Mark Ward, I like the sound of his voice. I had had thoughts of co-opting Wordsworth into ending this introduction, tying it up in a neat and canonical bow. But ultimately Thunder Alley is here, speaking for itself and proudly independent: you could not ask for more from a book of poems.
Richard Stanton
Acknowledgements and Copyright
Richard Stanton, Matthew Hollis, Mark Bains, Catherine Kay, Will Carr, Ann Lambert, Craig Birtles, Rebecca Chesney, the late Robert Woof, Dad: for his stories, Joe Cudden, The Arts Council of England, David Wilson, the staff of the Wordsworth Trust and all the good folks of Blackburn and Grasmere.
Huge thanks to Paul Farley and Neil Rollinson
For Tanya
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by
Aussteiger Publications, 21 Lowergate, Clitheroe, Lancashire, BB7 1AD
[email protected]
Reprinted 2009, 2011
Designed by Craig Birtles
All rights reserved
Mark Ward 2008
The right of Mark Ward to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance
with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image: Blackburn, 1848.
Cover and author photographs: Rebecca Chesney
Back Cover
Named after a former town-centre street, Thunder Alley is a remarkable account of a contemporary Blackburn and its people. This is a place where, in the author’s hands, even the mundane seems extraordinary, from the disabled veteran Mr Brown who escapes into a jigsaw: the Polish Barber, unable to forget; to the genial tramp who simply vanished. The language is fresh and immediate; the poems are lucid and by turns, harrowing, stark, playful and wise. It is Blackburn, but you could be anywhere.
Buy Mark Ward’s Thunder Alley and you won’t be disappointed. These drawn from life poems are sharply written, deftly observed and shot with humour. What more could you possibly want?
John Hartley Williams
This is the world as we know it, or think we know it: the focus is intense and compelling, but always eloquent and lyrical. The narratives are full of unsettling detail, edgy and profound, but compassion underpins everything. This is a moving collection, full of wisdom and insights, beautifully crafted, it holds a mirror up to the world and says: look, this is who we are.
Neil Rollinson