{"id":5146,"date":"2022-10-27T16:08:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T05:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=5146"},"modified":"2022-10-27T16:41:39","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T06:11:39","slug":"poetry-spotlight-courtier-by-aidan-coleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2022\/10\/poetry-spotlight-courtier-by-aidan-coleman\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Courtier’ by Aidan Coleman"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This week’s poetry spotlight contemplates the poem ‘Courtier’, from Aidan Coleman’s vigorous\u00a0collection <\/b>Mount Sumptuous<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Post written by Polly Grant Butler<\/pre>\n
Picking up this collection by Aidan Coleman, I was delighted to be greeted with lyrics from the Silver Jews on the acknowledgements page. I\u2019m not usually one for describing lyrics as poetry as I believe they are two distinct mediums (and no, I do not believe a certain singer-songwriter should have won the Nobel Prize in Literature). However, my one exception is the songs penned by Silver Jews\u2019 frontman David Berman, who tragically died in 2019. Deducing that Aidan Coleman must also be a fan of melancholic 90s American indie-rock, I decided I liked him immediately, and I was ready to see how this interest may or may not have informed the poems contained in Mount Sumptuous<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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Moving through the collection, I can certainly see how popular culture fits into Aidan’s work. And how it coincides with aesthetics, literary tradition, allusions to consumerism and capitalism, everyday observations and critique. These poems overflow with references, balancing ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture with careful attentiveness. As Lachlan Brown observes on the back cover of the book, \u2018In lesser hands such a dizzying array of references could lead to a kind of vertigo or even a sense of self-indulgent-over-referencing. Yet Coleman\u2019s omnivorous poems handle disparate elements superbly, holding an openness in tension with their erudite clarity.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The poem I have chosen to highlight is ‘Courtier’. I was drawn to this poem because of its quirky similes and conversational tone. I felt as though I was the addressee, imagining myself at the Blue Light Disco, next to the barbecue, searching for my best friend’s older brother who knows the DJ. The word ‘dizzying’ feels apt when it comes to Aidan’s poetry, in the same way the world feels dizzying, full of endless signifiers and advertisements and people and things. But unlike reality, this poem is the good sort of head-spin, one that has line breaks, allowing for drift, pause and reflection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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