Robbit.

Jonno Revonche reviews

?am Rrowru
click here for whot we do
Vogobond Press,20l8
tsBN 978-r -922I I l -34-3
RRP $25.00

Living in Sydney-at the best of times-feels like some external force is

constantly conditioning you into reformatting the brain. Friends move
in and out of the city at will, travelling or moving or merely escaping the
city for reprieve. Your favourite venues are alwaln closing or relocating,
construcdon is never not occurring, fesdvals pop up every second weekend
and your living conditions are never guaranteed (a precariousness that
Allison Gallagher conveyed well in her poem for Ouerhnd,'First Home
Bile'). One would argue that humans need some kind of continuity to feel
a sense of belonging, so trying to create a feeling of 'home' in the inner
city feels like full-time job.
a
dl that is to consider the basis of Pam Brownt brilliant,
To consider
witry free-fowing new book clich herefor tahat we /o, a tiipqch of longer
poems (mostly middle aligned) that tussle with the politics of digital
N"I
anemia, the end of times and the offiine symbols that we cling to in order
to feel a sense of place-even when they fail us or appear as meaningless as
their online counterparts. Poetry books like Brownt serve as a nonfiction
insight into this madness, acting like an essaywithout taking on too much
of the seriousness, serving rather as a clarifring force.

all of it is lies

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 rryicwc

tears well
on the rim

sound's white noise

round the house

Hito Steyerlt landmark essay on data proliferation, 'The Spam of the

Earth,' springs to mind herewhen I think about the phenomenon of over-
sdmulation. 't07ho could actually withstand such an onslaught without the
desire to escape this visual teritory ofthreat and constant exposure?'Steyerl
wonders in this essay, and in the era of a hyperreal aftention economy'
'\tr7e
this question feels as prescient as ever. are overrun with ads and digital
manipulation, ephemeral influencer narcissisms and fleeting moments of
panic as our news cycle offers a little bit of the apocalypse for taking every
morning as we take our home-brewed coffee.

50 cups
of$4
coffee
drink them
to achieve
super speed

it'll be great

The proliferation of spam as data is so enormous that it has far outnumbered

the tactics of communication valued by *y
humble citizen pre-internet.
The messages of artificial eroticism, of dieting and product placement,
demand our attention and energy. I often mourn this without wen knowing
what it is I've lost. Our brains have simply not evolved quick enough to
deal with this overload 6f qen16n1-the malaise I feel on any given day
can be matched with how many hours I've sPent unconsciously ficking

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 Robbil.

through myTwitter feed. How can we sift through this and sdll find some
space, some strength ro build a genuine sense of self and belonging and
even community-if such a thing can organically eicist any more-withour
being muscled out? We must fighr ro contain our personhood through
story by forgrng through.
Of course, the suggested chaos of the outside world that we garher
through headlines, nveets and governmenr warnings feel weirdly impenond
and ineffectual as soon as we leave the house, to encounter a busding city
that remains mostly unchanged. The disparity is often comical. Itt why
Pam Brown's delivery and intuition is appropriate in its offhandedness, and
wen inspiring, if only because it aims to undo any artempm to inspire. It
matches the worldly mood. She effectively builds passageways that move
forward without becoming too obsessed with linearity.

I m against barracking
for innovation
ingenuity nwer disappeared

is it just mel
yes?

I amwrong?

Brown's strearn of consciousness srFle is never indulgent-nor that I'm

necessarily against indulgence in poetic form-insread working through
observational details, using a certain wry distance, emoting only when
absolutely necessary. It is uplifting in ia honesty, quiedy emboldening in its
frankness. The chaos ofmoderniry and apocalyptic panic ncver overpowers
her or flattens her writing. This is smart poetry that worls hard to pull the
uickier fragments together and to let the thought processes remain clear in
the receipts. This does not read as a manifesto or a call to arms but instead
like a frank and conversational essay about the silliness of contemporary
times and the passing of information, and of how one clwer Sydnepider
would dare to address that information:

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 wicwr

(persondly of course I regret everything

)
not word not a deed not a thought
a ILs ;s * 1*ohlro'*'
not a need not a griefnot ajoy (on*"! 31e.K*tl i'' t^Jn77'
not a gid not a boy not a doubt
not a tryst not a scorn not a list
[ont-,*r*,'leJV/- *t
not a hope not a fear not a smile 'th tnls(os'P"f iN
not a tear not a name not a face 'L u)r1'td b*/<)
no time no place that I do not regret
exceedingly

an ordure from beginningto end)

Pam Brown knows the right way to meet a brilliant contemporariness

and carve it into voice without hammering you over the head or working
too hard to convince you ofim cleverness. \Uhen Brown works a double
entendre or nnrists something into humour, it serves to welcome you closer
as a readerwhile keeping the constraints precise and firm. If anything itt
a 'take it or leave it' approach that is so unflappable in its modesty and
homeliness and wit that you cant help but be charmed:

you are welcome

to stop reading
this poem now
whoorer you are

thanls

This diffidence, this selective kind of distance, is a shared one. As readers,

we know the chdlenge of even feeling a sense of passion for the potentid
for utopiawhen you're dready drunkwith information by noon. Bpecially
in Sydney<n Broadway, in Sanmore, on King Street-the speediness
of passers-by glves you no time to stop and refled. Their movement is so

139
 Robblt.

deliberate that you wonder whether theyte affiicted by the same worldly
anxieties that you are. At times, the monotony and disenchantment with
alternative possibilities fecls tangible, likc a thic.k gel of some kind blanketed
over the wider consciousness.

some PoetrF
is
very good
at futility

Itt difficult to know whether poetry can accurately welcome the zeitgeist,
or help to disentangle it, and those questions are even toyed with in this
book. Poetry can be delightfrrl precisely because it resists the question of
utiliry-it merely offers iself forward without conditions. That vagueness
can either be infuriating or encouraging depending on rhe mindset of thc
reader,,bur dich hoe fir what wc /o thankfirlly falls into the latter camp.
The d$e sections neatly compartmentalise the major concerns of human
emotion, digital ephemera, and accelerationist thinking generally, under
late capitdism. This collcction is a neat companion to our often confusing,
and troubling, dmes.

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