Slivers, Ian McBryde.  Victoria, Australia.  Flat Chat Press, 2005.  87 pp.  ISBN 0-9757202-7-9.

Reviewed by Patricia Prime

Ian McBryde’s Slivers is his fifth collection of poetry.  The book consists of poems restricted to one line.  The poetic name for this type of poem is “monostitch” from the Greek meaning “one line”.  Many twentieth century poets made use of one-line stanzas, either interspersed through a poem or at the end, where a single isolated line is especially emphatic, as in Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too” where he uses an isolated one line “I, too, sing America” at the beginning and end of his poem.  Many haiku poets, too, write one-line haiku, the foremost being Marlene Mountain who in the 70s published her first haiku book, the old tin roof, which includes many poems in one-line format.    Her one-liners have also been a major influence on English-language haiku and a model for such poets as Janice M. Bostok of Australia.

But McBryde’s poems are not haiku, although some might fit into that category being “haiku-like”, as the following poem illustrates

Hours later, the ashes stirring by themselves.

which could easily lend itself to a 3-line haiku format, containing two separate images and a pivotal phrase, i.e.,

Hours later,
the ashes
stirring by themselves

A poem that consists of a single isolated line, such as McBryde offers in Slivers can be a definition, an aphorism, an image, a fragment, or the kind of inscription one might find on a tombstone.  But it must stand out, without the interplay that other lines could provide, as in the poem

Statues melting on a bleach of lawn.

As the haijin William J. Higginson says in his online article “Haiku Clinic #3: From One-line Poems to One-line Haiku”:

Classical literature abounds with fragments that seem alluring one-liners, but probably were in fact parts of longer works before their manuscripts were damaged.  But in recent centuries various poetic movements have produced one-line poems quite deliberately.  Perhaps the first poet to produce one-line poems that have been recognised as such by many other poets in the West is Guillaume Apollinaire, who included this poem in his 1913 book Alcools:

And the single string of the sea trumpets.

McBryde uses the single line as an aural and visual stretch of words.  Read aloud, the line is like a melodic phrase, lasting the length of a breath.  At readings haijin often read their brief poems twice for emphasis and to allow time for the brief poem to be assimilated: the same could be said for McBryde’s one-liners: they need to be read or spoken more than once in order to capture the “moment” or the depth of meaning that underlies the line, as in the following example:

Pilotless, a dead plane flies on into nowhere.

with its undertones of 9/11 and the tragedy of the World Trade Center.

On the page, a line is a typographical unit, a horizontal row of words.  If the lines were enjambed they would be prose, but because the poet ends the line where he requires it to end, the text is verse.  The poet can determine a line’s length in several ways:  1.  By using a set number of syllables; 2.  By following a cadence or unmeasured surge of rhythm; 3.  By choosing a line’s length visually; 4.  By imposing a break, either where a pause occurs or between words usually grouped together.

Let’s take a look through some of the poems and see how McBryde manages the line.

The first poem I quote is an example of the use of a set number of syllables:

Unfolded, origami returns from magic to mere paper.

Here McBryde uses a “haiku-like” format that imposes an order that is not obvious but gives a sense of regularity more felt than heard: “unfolded” – three syllables, responded to by the rhythmic three syllables of “mere paper”.

The second poem is an example of the cadence of a line giving a strong sense of rhythm:

Memories of the bomb still mushroom within us.

In this poem we can see how McBryde uses the rise and fall of the language, the rhythmic shape made by the unimpeded flow of words.

Sometimes McBryde chooses a visual line, as in

The desert makes everything wait.

where the words form a picture, imitating how something looks or suggesting what the subject does: we know from experience, from movies or works of art what a desert looks like and the words “makes everything wait” imposes that sense of timelessness, desolation and lassitude that the word “desert” evokes.

The one-line poem may have a break imposed upon it, as in

Relax.  I kept my word, burned the negative.

There are several ways in which a poet can break a line; a break where a natural pause occurs (i.e. after “Relax”); he can separate phrases or grammatical breaks, as in “I kept my word, burned the negative.”

While there are several examples in Slivers that include punctuation, and even demand pauses within the line as read aloud, I have chosen some examples to illustrate the most singular attributes of what I would call true one-line poems, such as those that exhibit the following characteristics:

1. A one-line poem that does not exceed one line of type on a page and is intended to be read as an unbroken line without reference to any other line that surrounds it.  The following two examples are from McBryde’s more sensual poems:

I have climbed inside Siberia, and now await you.

and

Asleep, you smell like some as yet undiscovered flower.

2.  A one-line poem does not include forced pauses, indicated by space, grammar, syntax, or punctuation, as we see in the following examples:

One dim light shows in the blacked-out house.

and

There are no instructions for this maze of days.

The seasoned poetry reader will learn from these one-line poems – and may feel inclined to offer qualifications to some of the implied chains of influence set up in them.  For the reader who is no aficionado of one-line verse, they will just be rather puzzling.

Individually creative, the capacity of McBryde to play his own game with words and sentences rather than simply writing straightforward poems gives spontaneity and an intensity of commitment that is everywhere celebrated and affirmed.   McBryde retells many of his experiences in these brief poems that present him as living with a kind of truth to himself and an instinct that places him outside the norm as strikingly as his one-line poems contradict many inherited expectations and conventions about poetry, such as

Ravens outdate us, but we still forget.

The poem is a clear example of McBryde’s spontaneity.  A great many more examples of this kind might be provided: the book contains 78 pages of poetry, five one-line poems to a page.  The conclusion one draws from examination of them is that McBryde’s handling of his material is creative and intense, with a flair for individuality and innovation.

Slivers is one of a kind.  Written entirely in one-liners, the poems dance nimbly along.  McBryde’s marvellous use of language reflects the rhythms that lie within a breath or a heart beat.  Indeed, Slivers is like music: exciting, original and constantly surprising.