Cutting Review

'I'm not sure where it lies but it lies somewhere': The you-cannot-be-serious-poetics of Willy 'Alexicon' Singermouse, a Review by Penelope Cutting.

Everyone knows that a 'True Scot' is a poet whose 'devices' are left to dangle free, and Mr Singermouse's devices are certainly prominent. Take a look at the first four lines of his poem 'The Loch Ness Monster':

'O, Nessie my lassie, have you been to Tallahasse?
I'm not sure where it lies but I'm sure it lies somewhere.

O, Nessie my lassie, Oh Nessie, you really shouldn't have,
I mean it's an adorable token of affection but'

It's not only his sassy sibilant rhymes, but also his dogerrific rhythm, and monstrously cliched subject-matter. And yet who is this Nessie? What is her 'adorable token of affection' and what's the problem with it, why are we left hanging (dangling) after the 'but'? My favourite line in the poem is the second, which is why I've chosen to title this review with it, but then I am a girl who loves thin, tartan-veiled puns. You can imagine, therefore, I'm sure, my delight at the seventh line: 'Come back O Nessie I need to feel your ripples'. And the Tenth: 'Are you in America, I mean the US, Nessie'.

Is it just play? And should we care? Does it probe to the heart of anti-americanism? ultra-americanism? americolonialism? does it point towards a new sincere vision for Scotland? Or does it ponce about in the rubble of tourist-friendly falsity?

Is it a love poem? And if not, what else?

The truth is I don't know. I really can't be sure about anything at all. I'm not sure where this poem is lying but I know it is. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that 'Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies'. Willy 'Alexicon Singermouse''s nearish namesake Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that 'We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable'. Henry David Thoreau said, 'Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.' George Orwell said that '

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'