Last time I ended with thoughts on the complex masculinities explored through Colm Tóibín’s Orestes in his novel House of Names. This leads me almost seamlessly on to a new collection of poetry published by Broken Sleep Books. Masculinity: an anthology of modern voices, edited by Rick Dove, Aaron Kent and Stuart McPherson (2024) brings together men’s voices to construct what Dove describes as ‘a new narrative, that embraces the multitudes of manhood’. There are so many wonderful poems to choose from here, but I only have enough words for one, so I’m going to focus on ‘No. 9’ by Ben Sargent (p. 248).
As a resident of Exeter, who has been known to go to the occasional football match at St James’ Park, home ground of Exeter City FC, this poem resonates with me. The eponymous No. 9 is Adam Stansfield, who was a striker for City in the years before his death in 2010 at the age of 31. I saw him play many times. In the poem Sargent evokes not just Adam Stansfield, but also his son, Jay, another professional footballer. As he watches Jay ‘skip’ across the pitch the poet is ‘sucked into a wormhole’ to recall Exeter City’s triumphant return to the Football league, ‘watching Adam touch every blade of grass’. The boy in his back garden, lives that dream. As the wormhole shifts, we join the poet watching Stansfield’s funeral procession through the wet streets of Exeter. We knew it would happen, but we didn’t really think it would happen. I was there too, in the rain. I didn’t know him personally either, but that didn’t stop me crying.
Sargent captures these moments skilfully, transporting the reader backwards and forwards in time, through the personal and the public, through the triumph and the tragedy. The language is sensual. We hear the phantom crowds cheer as the young boy ‘bends in postage stamps’ just like Adam. We feel the rain on our faces disguising tears. Colour is woven throughout, blues and blues, beacons of hope. The poet watches a football match in Exeter City’s ‘newly renovated grandstand’, but this is not just about football. It is a poem that invites us to think about the social and cultural impact that football can have on a community, the regenerative power of those ups and downs as people come together, the never-ending cycles of inheritance from fathers to sons.
And if I may, from mothers to sons and daughters too. This poem embodies multiple meanings of masculinity, but its reach is more universal still. The same can be said of many of the poems in this collection. While distinctly capturing men’s voices, they also illustrate a broader humanity that speaks to all. Next time, however, I promise I will write about women as well.
