Reviewing Kevin Densley’s new collection of poems, ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERSHIRT, a disclaimer might be in order, as one of the poems in the collection, Sequence of Unease, is dedicated to me.
Let it be on the record that I am flattered and honoured.
Now that the formality of that disclosure is out of the way, I am happy to make the further disclosure that ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERSHIRT is a delight of instinctive larrikin lyricism.
There’s a litany of history – both personal and common – in the flinty, matter of fact – at times perfunctory – poems.
Bushrangers figure prominently – indeed there is a triptych of sorts – with the ganging of the three poems, Bushranger Harry Power, The Wilful Murder of Constable Samuel Nelson by Johnny Dunn, of Ben Hall’s Gang….., and A Noticeable Fistfight : Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly vs Iasiah ‘Wild’ Wright……
The trio is a triumph of poetic laureate of the folkloric.
Ben Hall and Ned Kelly are legendary and iconic, but Harry Power is less well known, although Densley seeks to right this lack of notoriety for this blusterer who “ ..claimed credit for teaching/ a young Ned Kelly/ the art of bushranging life/ reportedly saying at one hold-up/ nodding towards the nervous boy/’excuse the lad/ he’s only learning the game.’ “
Even less known in the bushranger range of notoriety is the pair, Jack Bradshaw and ‘Lovely’ Riley. Densley resurrects them from obscurity in a delightful ode.
“They were more like a bad vaudeville act/than a duo to be feared”. From crashing out at Coolah to cashing in at Quirindi, the dip-shit ne’er-do-wells short lived crime spree ended in an eight year stretch and the lovely braggart, Riley, slipping into the mists of obscurity.
The clamour of glamour in the confines of languor are artfully examined in a couple of pieces – Poses of Langour, where Densley intones: Show me women/in poses of langour,/seated on divans with heads tossed back/and backs of pale hands on wearied brows.- and Triptych, after Ingres, La Grande Odalisque.
In this stanza extravaganza, Densley ruminates on the ravages of fast food consumption.
Would you like sly with that?
The poems in ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERSHIRT are made up of morsels of the mundane and the marvellous. Ostentatiousness is banished and there is an unabashed delight in the low brow – Death of Presley comes to mind in a flash in the pan endgame of thrones – and we are made richer by the pourer of the familiar, both profound and profane.
ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERSHIRT by KEVIN DENSLEY. Is published by Ginninderra press.