The speakers in Simmonds collection are often going about their daily business when something happens, however seemingly insignificant an occurrence, leading to a moment of understanding or a revelation. They find it difficult to connect with other people and social encounters can be awkward. Despite this they are blessed with humour, and a compassion for those around them.
Urban Living
The collection takes its title from ‘Sunday at the Skin Launderette’ in which the speaker imagines the clientele removing their own skin and washing it. In ‘Handbag Thief’ the victim ruminates on the fate of her possessions at the hands of her assailant. ‘’The camera fits your palm/you grin and turn/the last exposure on yourself.’ A visit to the Tate Modern leads to the speaker admiring a modern art exhibit, ‘Cracked roller sponge/Abattoir light/Cold cup of coffee,’ only to find out she has found beauty in a room that is being refurbished.
The Transcendent
There is a suggestion throughout this collection of an otherness. In ‘The Dead are Dead’ the speaker longs for a sign to prove this from a lost loved one; to catch a glimpse of their figure in a mirror, or to visit a medium and be given trite, but comforting messages. In ‘At 8:35 My Television Breaks’ the speaker shakes a television as if conducting an exorcism, but knows it has ‘retreated to that other world/ a place beyond music or meaning.’
Religious Imagery
Ordinary objects are bestowed with wonder. In ‘Leftover’s’ an open fridge is compared to a shrine, ‘Lit like a tabernacle.’ In ‘Whittingham’s Mistake’ Simmonds uses a simple rhyming structure to retell the children’s story of Dick Whittingham. Only this time Dick travels to London believing the streets are paved with God. In ‘Transfiguration’ the speaker calls for a new saviour, one whose image is more suitable for our times. No more sandals, a decent hair-cut, ‘Smile without suffering/be Beckham-like.’
Social Unease
‘Agoraphobic in Love’ sees a shy person describing their anxiety on a date. Even though everything is going well for them they are afraid they will ruin this. They are uncomfortable in the world. ‘Everywhere queues of people breathing.’ The speaker wants to be ‘airlifted home.’ The desire for the person they are with is tempered by their need to feel safe. ‘Could I need him more than walls?’
Hope
There is plenty of humour too, especially in ‘Going to the Dogs with Mickey Rooney’ in which the speaker takes the diminutive film star to the dog track. In ‘On the Day that You were Born’ Simmonds rewords Burt Bacharach’s ‘Close to You’ replacing its sugar sweet sentiment with drowned potholers, a murder, and a plane disaster.
In ‘Against Melancholy’ the speaker encourages those filled with gloom to ‘look with your eyes/the one’s you use in dreams.’ The collection ends with a romantic assignation in ‘The Road to Persia.’ A couple bond in a slightly cheesy restaurant over rice and a mutual dislike for the Luc Besson movie, The Fifth Element.
Kevin Sturton - Kevin is a graduate of the 2005 Post-Grad course in Film Journalism run by the BFI and writes mainly about film.
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