Quick and lively.(Parker & Quink)(Book Review)

Parker & Quink, by Jennifer Compton; Indigo, 2004, $18.

THE MOST STRIKING aspect of Jennifer Compton's fourth collection is the lively voices of imagined characters with unexpected points of view: a young Neanderthal man, a boy serving in a medieval castle, "the daughter of the powerful race" ("Octopus Speaking"), horses on a racetrack. It's no surprise to learn that Compton is an award-winning playwright and wrote many of these poems while on a Writing for Performance grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council.

Personas speak to the reader in various ways: directly, in asides, using rhetorical questions and comments. Even in a poem like "The Box", written in third person, the reader is addressed with the single-word line, "No." All serve to involve the reader and bring the characters to life.

In "The Director's Resurrection" Compton uses the voices of a daughter and father. The former is the narrator, gradually drawing the reader into the story. The opening "Hist!" calls the reader's attention while setting the fairytale tone. As the story progresses, the reader is asked, both literally and colloquially, "... can you imagine?" Later, anticipating the reader's query, the persona responds with "And yes". The reader is directly addressed when describing the timber involved: "a queer sort of tree--// forbeetoo. Say it quite slowly." In an aside the narrator comments, "I don't think so", and the reader readily agrees with this response to her father's claim of feeding the same mouse "year after year". With this chatty tone Compton's narrator engages the reader.

Using italicised dialogue, the father, "with a sweet smile", then tells his daughter the story of a murder he imagines committing. The reader becomes more distanced, an observing audience. Although the story is emotional, the reader is less involved, and responds not sentimentally, but with understanding, which is more empathetic than intellectual.

Compton's longest and most deeply developed poem, "Imposing the Chat", focuses on not forgetting, and sharing through understanding. While ostensibly addressing a stranger in an internet chat room, the persona speaks to the reader: "I want to tell you. I want to tell someone."

The reader is taken on a hurried journey to an exhibition titled "Famous Child Murders". The details of the drive appear incidental, but have implications in the story of a girl "raped and drowned in a dam at age 9". Characteristically, the poem is more active than descriptive: "We get loster and loster", "A baby rabbit ran under our wheels" and "how the haunted trees crowd // in on you ..."