The Guardian Reviews Andrew McMillan's playtime
Kate Kellaway reviews UK poet Andrew McMillan's new collection, playtime (Jonathan Cape, 2019), a "candid exploration of gay adolescence." "One notes, in several poems, the decision to shy away from the first person, to keep things general," writes Kellaway. More, from The Guardian:
One of my favourite poems is “transplant” (a cautionary tale for any boy in a panic about going bald). At 17, McMillan hunts down a charlatan who transplants his hair in a bid to reverse the irreversible. It is one of several reminders that the body cannot be taken at face – or, in this case, scalp – value. Long after the hair has departed, he is left with:
...this scar
that catches the cold weather holds
it deep inside reminder
of my vanity tideline
of Canute tattoo of the time
I couldn’t live with what I was becominghere are other hazards – such as merciless classmates who pounce on his When the body is not a betrayer, tmobile in “first time sexting”. This is a devastating poem about being discovered to be gay but, as its last lines reveal, it is about more than that...
Read on at The Guardian.