Review by Geoff Sawers of "Pain Sections" by Paul Ilechko

Ilechko's first chapbook, Bartok in Winter (Flutter Press, 2018) was, as one might expect from the title, taut and spare with few words wasted; a book of clean lines and compressed, even drilled, language. Pain Sections is looser, more expansive – the larger paper format suiting the frequent use of very long lines – but continues the poet's searching investigation into the nature of the body as an unreliable medium, as both cage and vessel. A series of unspecified medical procedures are undergone; perhaps inevitably there is a yearning to escape at times, moments of panic, of surreal reverie, of frailty and fear. A poem that starts "A body drenched in joy / thicketed / and bruised / overwhelmed with pollen" ends with the lines "the iron-tasting leaves that still / eclipse / the lamp-lit room" ("Marrow of Purity"). If it was important for the reader to know the nature of these investigations, presumably we would have been told. But since that information is withheld it gives a weird, dislocated feel that I suspect is deliberate, since the very unreliability of the interfaces between mind and body seem to be the crucial site of much of the work's focus. Cancer is mentioned, but that appears itself to be a metaphor for something else.

At this point in the book there seems little escape: "and I wonder if / inside of each of us / there is only pulp / as inside each other / we liquefy ..." we read a few pages later ("Bruising"). The body is as tender as fruit; the natural world is a constant metaphor, with the erosion of coastlines mimicking the potential disintegration of a human body. But soon the possibilities of communication, especially in "Breath as Wave and Breath as Particle," begin to offer a way out of this stifling trap. At times we find what may be whispered lovers' dialogues, though the voices are unspecified and unsettling. Just as Bartok in Winter frequently switched voices within one poem, this book expands upon that technique and ends with a lengthy dialogue poem. If I have a real criticism to make it comes at this point as this fourteen-page dialogue, which seems to want and perhaps be able to resolve the tensions set up earlier in the book, is at times abstract or unfocussed. The most overused word – "leakage" – is still important however as it comes to emphasise the many unsoundnesses of the body. Even though this dialogue section contains memorable lines ("as light that flows through the cracks of our investment / I sold my waters for profit / I sold my light for kicks") it slips at one or two moments into bathos and could do with further careful editing.

Nevertheless, Ilechko's unflinching attention to detail is at times startling; little curls of the romantic or lyrical never distract from his serious purpose. Small touches of very dark humour come through too at times. Looking back once more at his earlier book the themes were all there, but the language was archer, more stylised. References to various artists – Ryman, Borges, Hopper – seemed unnecessary when, in the latter two cases at least, their influence was quite plain to see. In Pain Sections, Ilechko's voice is much more assured, biting without being sarcastic, and unafraid to tackle the most difficult of themes.

About the reviewer

Geoff Sawers (he, him) is the author of several books including a collection of linked short stories, Friends of Friends (Diehard, 2024). He is a lone parent of a disabled child and lives in Reading, UK. You can read a review of Friends of Friends on Everybody's Reviewing here.