Squid Squad

 

'Squid Squad' by Matthew Welton was picked up in the novels section of Waterstones on the basis of the first page, and while I very much enjoyed the word play of the first 64 pages I felt that it was merely word play, and because the happenings were random it didn't progress in any meaningful way, as I kind of expected, and what started out as delightful became repetitive and a little boring as I went along. Sorry. 

"#42

Nerys Harris pinches out her birthday

candles. Dustin Mostyn's wristwatch rusts.

Someone's removed the clapper from Bradley

Ridley's bell. The rungs of the wooden ladder

rot in the rain.

As Natalie Chatterley tugs the rope towards

her, the bucket edges further away. The 

melon seeds swell in the swallows' guts.

Doubt deepens like a sleepy river, Nerys

Harris supposes.

Dustin Mostyn mimes the action of

knocking at a door. Wistfulness wears down,

thinks Lola Wheeler, like the workings of

the wind.

Bradley Ridley's mittens shrink in the drizzle.

A beetle scuttles between the bricks. On the 

tree in Lola Wheeler's yard, luminescent

lemons appear." 

But I did also enjoy very much some of the other poems. Lemons appear in several of them, much to my amusement. It felt like a theme. They are gently witty and again use a lot of word play and alliteration. The book ends with this gem:

Poem for Laurie Clark

nine

ten

a lemon

twelve

I am still glad that I picked it up, because it is always good to come across writers doing unusual stuff with words, experiments make the world a more interesting place.

Stay safe. Be kind. Eat some (lemon) cake.