Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?

Ian McMillan

• Publisher: The Poetry Business
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781912196371
• eBook ISBN:
  9781912196487
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

A puddle, lighthouses, the financial crisis (in three parts) or seeing a goal scored from a passing train, these typically sharp-eyed and brilliantly inventive McMillan poems often can't help being very funny, while also being, as usual, more serious than they seem, and more hurt.

Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?

1.

I snap my fingers at Time

Like it’s a waiter

Approaching with soup.

2.

Rootling down the back of the drawer, I found these diaries from years that haven’t happened yet. Rootling round the back of the diaries I found these drawings from evenings that haven’t slipped by yet. Rootling around at the back of these years I found diaries that haven’t been opened yet. Rootling around at the back of these evenings I found openings that haven’t yet closed.

3.

This bit of the day was improvised

But this bit of the day wasn’t improvised.

This bit of the day was completely improvised.

But this bit of the day was only partly improvised.

This bit of the day was improvised, but badly.

This bit of the day was improvised, but well.

This bit of the day was going to be improvised.

This bit of the day wasn’t going to be improvised.

4.

Hello, Time. Tell you what:

You are like the fossil

Of a clown’s last laugh.

5.

I think we’ll start with a starter, yes,

We’ll have (is distracted by the view

Of a bridge from the café window)

That, that thing, there, that thing

(Is distracted by the gulls flying over

The bridge he can see from the café

Window) that I believe (is distracted

By a memory of a rough trip to Lundy)

Is called, is called, soup. Please forgive

Me if I snap my fingers at you. I like jazz.

6.

I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Tone Found in Sonnet: a Murder Mystery
• A Financial Crisis in Three Parts
• Between Junction 35a and Junction 36
• In the Bookshop: a Poem in that Ol' Plain Style
• TEN DER
• Adult Audio
• The Fallen Christmas Tree at the Museum
• The News
• Three Flat Caps at the Bottom of the Stairs
• Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?
• Lighter
• Seeing a Goal Scored from a Passing Train
• Lighthouses
• Summer Dreams Ripped at the Seams
• The Puddle
• Where Was Your Ghost Before?