59. Father Figure

...being a look back at a pre-pandemic publication, and a musing on just why I am obsessed with father figures

Back in that different pre-pandemic country of 2019, I felt that my career in poetry was taking a decidedly upwards trajectory. I had had my first chapbook published by someone other than myself. Admittedly, that someone was my friend and mentor Ian Parks. But it felt good to have someone have faith in my work and spend some time, effort and money on giving me the opportunity to distribute it to a wider readership. I was the second poet to be published by Ian’s Glasshead Press, with a release of a limited edition of 100 copies, each signed and numbered by myself. I designed the cover, which featured some wonky spectacles, just like the ones that I wear¹, on a bright yellow background.

I put in a bit of effort touting it too. I went to a number of poetry evenings around Yorkshire to read from it. I even sent it off to one or two publishers, because a part of the purpose of a chapbook is to try and attract someone to put a larger collection out. But all was to no real avail.

I sold a handful of copies at the readings, I gave a few more away, The ones that I sent out sank without trace and there are still a substantial amount on the shelves next to where I am writing now. My impetus seemed to fade with the pandemic. It was a while before I got my enthusiasm for poetry back.

The collection was called A Voyage Around my Father Figures (And Other Male Role Models)². I’m sure that I have offered this before, but if you want one, drop me a message, and I’ll gladly send you one for the cost of the postage, although to be honest, you can find at least seven of the poems from within its twenty eight pages elsewhere in this substack series. Whilst making the selection from my collection of poems for the chapbook, I had realised for the first time how substantial a proportion of my output was about either my Dad, other father figures, or people who could be described as male role models. Regular readers will know that there are quite a lot more than seven poems on these themes in the Sixty Odd Poems. I never intended to write so many. Most of the time I don’t even realise that I have written another one until it has finished. It just seems that when I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), fathers, father figures and other assorted man are often the subjects of what issues forth.

Why should that be? I have noticed that many male poets who I know have written pieces about their fathers. This might be a response to the sort of realisation that comes to many men, when we reach middle age, that we are turning into our fathers. Sometimes it comes with a glance in the bathroom mirror, and seeing his face staring back. Sometimes it comes when we find ourselves saying something in a way that he would have spoken, or just behaving in a way that brings him to mind. I have experienced all of these moments. But the obsession with other father figures, teachers, pop stars, and more, goes a bit deeper.

I am not my father. There is a lot of him in there, but there are plenty more blokes besides. Maybe my need to write about them stems from the difficult circumstances which I related in The Rucksack. The sinister, self appointed role model who inspired that piece certainly had quite an effect on my development, my attitudes towards people in general and close relationships in particular.

Perhaps all the writing about people such as David Bowie, Mister Shearring, and William Brooks is evidence of me obsessively working through different aspects of how I might relate to older blokes. These days I am myself an older bloke. Old enough to realise that it is unhelpful to allow myself to be unduly influenced by past injustices, and able to focus more clearly on ensuring that I give expression to the real character of who I actually am. I feel more confident in making more of a conscious attempt to bring the best of the characters that influenced me to the foreground of my own personality.

And look where I have led myself in the sentences above. Once again, here I am on the therapist’s couch afforded to me by sitting in front of a computer screen and writing. Thank you for coming with me, holding my hand, and poring over the notes that the old father-like psychiatrist is taking.

The poem Father Figure was one of the few that I wrote specifically for the Father Figures chapbook. I felt that I should create an opening piece. I needed an overview of my attitude to the difficult world of male role models. I have performed it a few times without actually feeling that it hits its mark with those who hear it. It has to be read in two voices, the voice of the father figure, alternating with the narration in the voice of the poet. Perhaps this makes it slightly off key. And yet I always remember the one occasion that I read it in front of an audience and detected a ripple of the right sort of uneasy recognition at the lines:

Headmasters, scoutmasters, men of the cloth
They would all lend a hand to show lads the way

In a week when the Archbishop of Canterbury has had to resign due to his handling of a situation that he must have had, at the very least, a strong inkling of, those lines still have a discordant clang to them in my mind. The sort of discordant clang that I wanted them to have. One that brings a shudder along with it.

Father Figure

That’s the trouble with young lads today, he said
With watery eye and spittle flecked lip
They have no father figure at all, he said
With liver spot hands and stubble hazed jaw
They’ve no male role-model to show them the ropes
Their dads have deserted, nowhere to be seen
Before they were born, more often than not
With alcohol breath and nicotine teeth 
Brought up by women; mum, grandma, and aunts
Unnatural, dangerous, wrong, he said
Dismaying, indignant, delivered deadpan

It was different when I was a boy, he said
With a sudden sharp sniff and a faraway look
Men were men, an example to all, he said
With a jut of the chin and a swell of the chest
A dad was a dad, and he did what he could
Headmasters, scoutmasters, men of the cloth
They would all lend a hand to show lads the way
With conviction and clarity, purpose of mind
With a privileged view from the moral high ground
All seeing, all knowing, all wise, he said
Melancholic and maudlin, and misty of eye

I wish that I’d had my own kids, he said
With a sad little smile, and a shrug of regret
A boy of my own flesh and blood, he said
With a catch in his voice and a rattling breath
I’d have brought him up right, decent, honest and true
By now he’d be a man, he’d live on when I’m gone
To represent me all the years I’m not here
With strength and a heart, courage and respect…
I never got married, but I always did
What I could for the boys that I knew, he said
Sighed, sat there silently, shuddered and stilled

1. It was a great design. I’m not exactly accusing the Philip Larkin Society of pinching it for their 2022 celebration of the Hull based poet’s centenary, just pointing out that I couldn’t possibly have copied them because my chapbook predated it by three years. Admittedly, I was probably thinking of Larkin (and not disgraced light entertainer Rolf Harris) when I bought the glasses in the first place.

2. Ian Parks wrote a lovely tribute for the back cover. I don’t recall thanking him properly for this gesture before, probably due to some awkward feeling of embarrassment at accepting praise. But here it is - Thank you Ian

Mike O'Brien's poems catch both the eye and ear.
Written for performance, they are equally engaging on the page. In this, his first pamphlet of poetry, he explores our complicated relationships with fathers - literal and metaphorical. O'Brien's poems are witty, sharp, and original. They encourage us to laugh at ourselves as well as others and in doing so remind us of what it's like to be human. Whether as a record of his brilliant live performances or as a sequence of poems to be read on the page, this pamphlet acts as an introduction to excellent and eccentric poetic universe of Mike O'Brien