[James Midgley]

.

Rat Lists

Did they wish to be counted? Surely they chose
to burgeon the barrel, to wince from the gutterpipe
which sang in a low tuba note their compressions.
As they gathered they wound tail over tail
and these were not in the end much like worms at all
but squirming corals or the near-luminous
anemones that wriggle beneath undersea rocks
and the rocks of their bodies grew indistinct
and their feet which had been almost human
interlinked like verses and the wearing action
of hearing their names called, like the harsh
erosion of the ocean, rubbed them smooth, hairless
but somehow precious, valuable to someone who
might mention it but not stoop to grasp them.
Meanwhile the fire murmured at the local and a band
not too loudly played a tune to nostalgia which was
a song to the gaps much as rain is
though no weather woke and the evening was pure
and the girls adorned bright dresses and eyelashes
and the boys played at marbles under the washing lines.
And there were names like Field-Goat, Does-Calculations,
names for irregular bleeding and discolouration,
names that made you laugh, many to make you rage,
and when the litany finished and the piping died down
the one led away was exactly what you'd expected –
it was Cheats-at-Cards-Elegantly, it was Mother-
of-Polite-Orphans, it was Thrown-Stone and Window,
it was Overwatchful-Eye, else Blind or Willow-Nose,
it was From-Foreign-Burrow but also Home-Over-Swollen,
it was Water-Supply and Ungodly-Wrong and Amen.


.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, James—

I remember reading somewhere, probably in some unreliable online source, that in a big city like New York or London, you are never more than six feet away from a rat. I also remember reading Orwell’s 1984 for the first time and being creeped out by Room 101 and the wire mask with the rat that, if released, would bore into Winston’s cheek and devour his tongue. Rats are the stuff of Halloween, but as I read your poem, I felt myself warming up to them. The names are so evocative.

Glenn

[Matt Q]

Hi James,

Great to see you posting at the Sphere. I'm really happy to be reading your poems again. I think this one is excellent. It pulled me in and held my interest throughout. I had no idea what would happen next until it did. The imagery is strong throughout. I loved the tails as corals and anemones, for example. I was drawn to reread the poem a number of times, and will come back and read it more. I don't have any nits, but I'll keep looking. Probably the most useful thing I can do at this point is offer my reading of it.

The first half of the poem seems to describe the formation of a rat king. The gathering rats "wound tail over tail". The transformation continues, the rat's bodies grow indistinct and hairless and even their feet link together. The hearing of the names seems to play a causal role in this. In this, there's a sense (for me), that that which individuates -- having a name -- is part of what's causing their loss of individuation, their coming together as a single being.

The second half seems to take us to the realm of humans, to a pub, and when this move happens, it seems relevant, perhaps, that the rat's feet had previously resembled humans'. Or at least, that's something that strikes me as I read. So, I think we're among humans, but there's a slight doubt, perhaps, that we are still among rats (though that's not my reading). The scene seems to be one imbued with purity and nostalgia, and children (who may possibly be adults) conform to their traditional gender roles. Here too, there are names. And the poem takes a more disquieting, darker turn. In the context of the list of names, someone is led away. And the possible names of the ones led away seem to hint at race/nationality (Discolouration, From-Foreign Burrow -- and possibly Willow-Nose hints at a presumed racial physiognomy), religion ("Ungodly Wrong", "Amen"), disability ("Blind"), social class/financial deprivation (Widow-of-Polite-Orphans, Home-Over-Swollen), rule-breaking (Thrown-Stone, Cheats-at-Cards).

So, over all, given the lists, and who is taken away, I'm reminded of totalitarian regimes, and fascism in particular, given the emphasis on nostalgia. How to put the two halves together? It occurs to me that I can read them in reverse order. That perhaps the calling out of names causes the people to subsequently to become an indistinguishable whole, and to lose their humanness in the way the rats lost their human-like feet. And perhaps this form of unity, of indistinguishability, can be seen as the goal, or consequence, of a totalitarian regime.

I imagine the above isn't necessarily the only reading, and maybe I'm reading too much in in places, but that's where it took me. The poem pulls me in, and invites me to get involved, it's evocative and makes me want to weave a story around it, and that's very much what I like in a poem.

So, again, I really enjoyed this poem. I'd say it was ready to go, and deserves a home someplace good.

All the best,

Matt