A FIRST collection is a daunting challenge for any poet and the reception of Robin Robertson's A Painted Field has been further weighted by its being the first poetry collection published by Picador. Heaviest of all is the burden of expectation placed on him as a "new poet" because of his reputation as a tough and exacting editor.
Most of the poems have appeared in newspapers and literary journals. The collection is far closer in mood, tone and physicality to Irish poets than to much of the poetry currently being published in London.
Many of the poems reflect the rugged seascape outside his native Aberdeen. "A strong landscape leaves an indelible mark" he says, and adds after more than 20 years in London, "I still hear the gulls." Water is prevalent as are the grey blue hues. Robertson has also spent a great deal of time in the lakelands area of Co Fermanagh. The work is mixed catching the changing attitudes of man moving from youth to experience. The gentle Victorian lyricism of Camera Obscura, a long verse sequence about Scotland, "Staring out at the Arboretum,/I see one tree shudder, disengage,/and move out of frame, resolving itself/into a spider" contrasts with the harsh colloquialism and technical virtuosity of The Flaying of Marsyas: After Ovid".. flagged/as his own white cross. ,/the satyr Marsyas hangs./Three stand as an honour guard:/ two apprentices, one butcher/ Let's have a look at you, then./Bit scrawny for a satyr,/ all skin and whipcord, is it?/Soon find out." It is a tough, uncompromising poem about colonialsm and racism, inevitable themes for a Scot living in England.
Yet Robertson stresses his work is not didactic. Doing his own version of the Ovid meant he experienced an emotional response which was freed of the heavier, technical responsibity of poetry, "it frees you up to do something. Exactness of language comes as second nature to Robertson, so much so he sees it as a joke and laughs at the amount of notice this quality has been given in relation to him. Candid rather than defensive about his work, he speaks about individual poems as if he once knew them well. "I do make sure a text is perfect, it's my job. I have a professional rigour. But the poets are always looking for the right word." Speaking about the endless levels of understanding he can point to a poem as bleak as Navigating North which begins with the memory of a casual encounter in a Frankfurt hotel, and arrives at the sea where, "stars fall from his hands,/his cut hands full of splinters/and herring scales. to Jack-in-the-Green, "a poem I like though I'm sure sure what it's about." What is he striving for as a poet?: "I don't want to be easy, or opaque. I'm interested in mystery. The writing of a poem is a mystery. You want to marvel at the music."
