This collection boldly assesses the state of modern masculinity
‘What is masculinity if not taking the weight / of a boy and straining it from oneself?” In “Strongman”, Andrew McMillan takes his young nephew’s playful request to “benchpress him” like “his mother’s new lover can” as an imaginative springboard to some urgent personal and social concerns. It is typical of the poems in Physical, which has been longlisted for the Guardian first book award and shortlisted for the Forward prize best debut collection. Adept at finding the surreal in the everyday, turning an ear to the lilt of conversation alongside serious (but rarely solipsistic) reflection, McMillan’s verse worries away at what it is to be human, to feel through both the flesh and our emotions, to lose and to love, but most of all, what it means to be a man. In his delicate, frank and piercing interrogations of maleness, this is a poet who looks to assess the state of modern masculinity. He does so in ways that few others currently writing are either willing or able to.
“The men are weeping in the gym / using the hand dryer to cover their sobs”, begins one grimly comic dissection of male anger and anxiety: “swearing that they feel / nothing when the muscle tears itself / from itself”. Sorry scenes of guys bulking themselves up with bicep curls and protein shakes, “swearing” under their breath, are related with an insider’s perspective; the poem manages to steer clear of sanctimony even as it gently mocks, speculating at the compensatory nature of such actions. Similarly, the frustrated imagination of an unhappily married man is powerfully envisaged in “Things Men Take”, though here the tone comes closer to judgment as it seeks to expose and provoke, wondering at “the man who takes the image / of the blond haired girl in the lowcut top”. The effect is immersive, and the poem makes for uncomfortable reading.
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