Review: How Decent Folk Behave

Title: How Decent Folk Behave

Author: Maxine Beneba Clarke

Publisher: 27th October 2021 by Hachette Australia

Pages: 182 pages

How I Read It: ARC book

Genre: poetry

My Rating: 4 cups

Synopsis:

A vibrant, thought-provoking collection from the ABIA and Indie award-winning author of The Hate Race and Carrying the World.

we are all just one small disaster

away from sinking, 

and sometimes you only realise

when you're gasping for air

On a daylight street in Minneapolis Minnesota, a Black man is asphyxiated - by callous knee of an officer, by cruel might of state, and under crushing weight of colony. In Melbourne the body of another woman has been found - this time, after catching a late tram home.

The Atlantic has run out of the English alphabet, when christening hurricanes this season. The earth is on fire - from the redwoods of California, to Australia's east coast. The sea draws back, and tsunamis lash out in Samoa and Sumatra. Water rises in Sulawesi and Nagasaki. Bloated cod are surfacing, all along the Murray Darling.

The virus arrives, and the virus thrives. Authorities seal the public housing towers up, and truck in one cop to every five residents. Notre Dame is ablaze - the cathedral spire blackened, and teetering.

Out in Biloela, the deportation vans have arrived. Every Friday, in cities all across the world, children are walking out of school. The wolves are circling. The wolves are circling.

These poems speak of the world that is, and sing for a world that may one day be.

My Thoughts

WOW! This one powerful book … small in size but packs a real punch! Poetry can convey what is sometimes difficult to express. Maxine through her eloquent prose has captured the thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears that many of us have been confronted with over these past few somewhat traumatic times.

The monsters are out

And the women of melbourne,

We’re leaving early again:

Sending are you home? Texts glancing

Over shivering shoulders keeping

Friends on the line until

They key’s in the lock

Who is Maxine?

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer of short fiction, non-fiction and poetry and has been published in numerous publications. Her critically acclaimed short fiction collection, Foreign Soil won the ABIA for Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2015 and the 2015 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writing at the 2015 ABIAs and the 2015 Stella Prize. She was also named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2015. Maxine has published three poetry collections and has just released this new collection, ‘How Decent Folk Behave’. 

How Decent Folk Behave is an extraordinary collection of poetry on wide ranging topics. From floods and fires, racial violence, violence against women, #metoo, #blacklivesmatter and, of course, the pandemic. Maxine manages to cleverly capture the many challenges of what many of us have been feeling over recent times. I wanted to read this book as I feel that the language of poetry would succinctly capture these plethora of emotions the world is witnessing. 

For a moment, we forgot the pandemic

And the floods, and the shootings

And the blasts, forgot to wonder

Where next month’s rent

Would be coming from

And the whole world stood

And watched, in awe

Who is Maxine? 

A literary phenomenon. She takes these matters and uses her words to be both confronting and consoling, to be honest yet inspirational in this rare yet pure form of storytelling. She is angry, she is proud … she is a powerhouse in this literary genre. In her own words:

‘How Decent Folk Behave allowed me to write on the things that have permeated our consciousness over the last few years. To me, poetry is also a hopeful, joyful space. In a busy world, poetry can be a long ‘tapping out’ of the world around us, or else can be read at leisure, in stops and starts, filling the gaps between living with something profound, or funny, or nostalgic, soul-stirring. It provides a moment off the treadmill – to stop and reflect, and listen.’

Sometimes a handout is a hand up,

That’s that thing

And it’s never you

It’s never you,

Until it is

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.