When the Legz Akimbo theatre company comes to town in the darkly comic BBC series The League of Gentlemen, one of its revue sketches is a perceptive satire on the North of England titled Scumbelina. Flatcapped pie-eating yokels lope about the stage before asking in desperation, "Who did this to us?", to which the answer comes, "Willy Russell, John Godber, Jim Cartwright", those well-known masters of the "it's grim up north" genre.
When the poetry version of Scumbelina is written, one name sure to feature is Sean O'Brien. In truth, however, O'Brien is much more concerned with interrogating than perpetuating such cliches. O'Brien is critical of the South for manufacturing Northern stereotypes, and of the North for its lazy acquiescence regarding them. His North is recognisably full of war nostalgia and football fanaticism, or as `A Northern Assembly' puts it:
The thick, the bought, the out to lunch,
Carnivores in eco-hats
Empire-builders, toadies, twats:
The shite that rises to the top
But couldn't run a corner shop.
But the hectoring satire of this poem is born out of a fruitful mixture of exasperation and affection:
I'm told you shouldn't take the Mick
Because the North can't take the stick
To which the modern poet replies
That what she loves she'll satirise.
It is doubtful that much love has ever been lost between O'Brien and another victim of his satire, Geoffrey Hill. In `Ex Historia Geordisma', O'Brien unleashes a devastating impersonation of the older poet, as scurrilous as it is hilarious. "How can you grasp the banana", he writes, "you who do not like it up you,/Eh?" Hill's answer is keenly awaited.
O'Brien is a poet of great technical facility. Throughout Downriver, the bite of his satire is sustained by a skilful use of Drydenesque heroic couplets and ballad forms. There are also song cycles, such as Songs from the Drowned Book and Songs from Downriver, both the result of musical collaborations. This variety means that Downriver is never less than an absorbing read. `The Railway Sleeper' demonstrates O'Brien's more conventionally lyrical side, as well as returning to the railway nostalgia of his last book, Ghost Train. This dreamy sequence of prose poems takes on added significance given the recent near-collapse of the English rail network.
Such commitment to political poetry is admirable, and something that few other writers could carry off with such aplomb. Downriver is a provoking and satisfying collection.
Caitriona O'Reilly's The Nowhere Birds has just been published by Bloodaxe Books