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Happiness
Happiness is the long-anticipated debut collection from the award-winning Jack Underwood. With the sort of smart, persuasive voice associated with Simon Armitage and Michael Donaghy, these poems worry at the world in search of consolation, or else meet life's absurdity and strangeness half-way; whether sitting proudly atop an unexploded bomb, or injecting blood under the skin of a banana, playfulness and imagination are vehicles for confronting 'the fearful and forgotten things I've lied to myself about'. Here are poems which address anxiety about fatherhood, remorse for lost lovers and friends, or mourn for a miscarried sibling. Happiness is a collection preoccupied with the ephemerality of happiness itself, at the ever-present possibility of its departure, and the ways we try to grasp and keep hold of it. 'Every single thought I'm having is about LOVE', here meaning both the pleasure and panic of love, its peculiarity; love as a feeling of risk, love for one's own body, familiar yet estranged, of 'cack-handed LOVE at his console', love like 'pausing to move a snail somewhere safer in the rain'.
- GenresPoetryContemporary
79 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 14, 2020
It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a poetry book so much. I enjoyed the fresh voice and imagination. I loved Underwood’s metaphors and similes, sometimes in the same sentence! Such as
Sometimes your sadness is a yacht
huge, white and expensive, like an anvil
dropped from heaven: how will we get onboard
up there, when it hurts our necks to look?
The best thing about this book is the tone. The title, after all, is "Happiness." But it isn’t effusive or in-your-face or even especially upbeat. The love poems remind me sometimes of ee cummings, but without the tumescent lust, sometimes of Kenneth Patchen, but without the sacredness. There’s even a "Love Poem to Myself," which begins
Your basic appetites and pale feet renew
my faith in evolution; when you slide drunk
into a bath all the palm trees in Miami burn
My favorite poems at the moment are “Love Poem to Myself,” “Poem of Fear for My Future Child,” “13 Say,” and “I promise when I lift your egg.”
There’s a very funny prank poem called “The Spooks.” I won’t spoil it.
Sometimes your sadness is a yacht
huge, white and expensive, like an anvil
dropped from heaven: how will we get onboard
up there, when it hurts our necks to look?
The best thing about this book is the tone. The title, after all, is "Happiness." But it isn’t effusive or in-your-face or even especially upbeat. The love poems remind me sometimes of ee cummings, but without the tumescent lust, sometimes of Kenneth Patchen, but without the sacredness. There’s even a "Love Poem to Myself," which begins
Your basic appetites and pale feet renew
my faith in evolution; when you slide drunk
into a bath all the palm trees in Miami burn
My favorite poems at the moment are “Love Poem to Myself,” “Poem of Fear for My Future Child,” “13 Say,” and “I promise when I lift your egg.”
There’s a very funny prank poem called “The Spooks.” I won’t spoil it.
April 8, 2024
cheeky spring re-read! still big love<3
always fun to be surprised by ur own annotations in a library from exactly one year ago. i want to be all over this place xx
would start a ranking just to rank "she loves you like" as one of my most effective 25 love poems ever.
MASCHA update: had a postcard in my high school locker with "An stillen Regentagen aber warte ich auf das sogenannte Glück" which seems to be referenced & appreciate a full circle moment.
----///\\\----
okay so this is actual happiness.
favourites are: title poem, my sister, second, holy sonnets x / the bomb / the anatomy of a hammock / she loves you like / thank you for your email. also special shout out to the spooks, adore. LOVEDDDDDD all of the Mascha Kalélo poems, honorary favourites mention solely because she is so under-appreciated and i love that underwood seems to love her. she deserves all the love. especially germans out there, grab yourself a volume of hers when you buy happiness.
but LOVE me for a feeling / of risk that is as real as the feeling we had standing / in the cathedral, looking up beneath the big chandelier.
always fun to be surprised by ur own annotations in a library from exactly one year ago. i want to be all over this place xx
would start a ranking just to rank "she loves you like" as one of my most effective 25 love poems ever.
MASCHA update: had a postcard in my high school locker with "An stillen Regentagen aber warte ich auf das sogenannte Glück" which seems to be referenced & appreciate a full circle moment.
----///\\\----
okay so this is actual happiness.
favourites are: title poem, my sister, second, holy sonnets x / the bomb / the anatomy of a hammock / she loves you like / thank you for your email. also special shout out to the spooks, adore. LOVEDDDDDD all of the Mascha Kalélo poems, honorary favourites mention solely because she is so under-appreciated and i love that underwood seems to love her. she deserves all the love. especially germans out there, grab yourself a volume of hers when you buy happiness.
but LOVE me for a feeling / of risk that is as real as the feeling we had standing / in the cathedral, looking up beneath the big chandelier.
Read
May 15, 2023small reread my memory of was getting motheaten & can confirm still very all lovely , he's such a natural poet of sentiment I think jack gets around rather than confronts problem of irony. hm. anyway was thinking w this read especially about how nearly every pome in Happiness features or references some kind of biological/organic 'inside', things are always inside others and aware of it, from an awareness of the feeling of one's socks on one's feet to the gush of gasoline in the pump. I like that
November 4, 2018
One of my favourite collections of recent years.
November 7, 2017
Poetry makes me feel stupid
I don't understand it
This is clearly competent and honest,
I don't know how I know that
But it seems so
But it is like a foreign language to me.
Norweigan perhaps.
A language where even some of the letters are different.
I don't know how it works.
I don't know the rules,
I tried to let it wash over me.
That helped.
A little.
But still, it was like looking a something through somebody else's spectacles.
I didn't enjoy it.
Because it made me feel stupid.
But some of the words seemed to touch me. Somehow.
Am I condemned to keep trying, and failing to understand?
Or,
One day,
Like gazpacho and jazz
Will I just 'get it'?
I don't understand it
This is clearly competent and honest,
I don't know how I know that
But it seems so
But it is like a foreign language to me.
Norweigan perhaps.
A language where even some of the letters are different.
I don't know how it works.
I don't know the rules,
I tried to let it wash over me.
That helped.
A little.
But still, it was like looking a something through somebody else's spectacles.
I didn't enjoy it.
Because it made me feel stupid.
But some of the words seemed to touch me. Somehow.
Am I condemned to keep trying, and failing to understand?
Or,
One day,
Like gazpacho and jazz
Will I just 'get it'?
January 10, 2016
Intense and thought provoking. Two SO Cliché words I know but that's a good way to describe this poetry collection. Atypical in its approach, Underwood has a knack for maybe leading you on a thought pattern and then sideswiping you with the next line. At times, uncomfortable, it's a collection that makes you feel... and to me, that's of the highest compliments to poetry. Although some highlights do exist, I think it's a matter of mood, mindset and what poetry you like that will ultimately decide how much you enjoy this collection. That said, the talent is there and the emotion is direct.
September 10, 2022
FROM 2015--THIS is his first collection, I believe, with a second arriving last year. It feels like an old-school kind of poetry collection to me, in that it does not seem to be a "project," exactly, with a defined mission and some set of formal constraints. Instead, the book seems to say, "these are my best poems from the last n years, and I think they hang together, more or less."
I can see why project collections seem like a good idea; it's a way to catch the attention of a publisher, or a prize committee, or a hiring committee, I imagine. But nowadays there seem to be more project collections than non-project collections, so Underwood's book was a welcome change of pace, less "this book has a mission," more, "here are some interesting poems."
The book does have a kind of unity in Underwood's voice, though, with its dry-as-the-Gobi humor, its juggling of high culture and popular culture, its wit, its obliqueness, its quirky Syd Barrett style melodicism. I think I must have picked it up because I came across a poem of his I liked--in Granta, perhaps?--and taking that risk paid off, for I enjoyed the book greatly. (I went ahead and ordered the next collection).
I wonder what is going on in British poetry, which I admit to not having followed much for quite a while. Various poets I heard about (Robin Robertson, Carol Duffy, Christopher Reid, Mark Ford) I sampled and respected without feeling much enthusiasm. But I get the feeling some new current has entered the scene. Underwood's acknowledgement page tips the hat to Emily Berry, whom I also read this summer, and to Sam Riviere, whose novel Dead Souls and I have read about two-thirds of. Berry and Riviere's books were both excellent as well. Something's happening.
I can see why project collections seem like a good idea; it's a way to catch the attention of a publisher, or a prize committee, or a hiring committee, I imagine. But nowadays there seem to be more project collections than non-project collections, so Underwood's book was a welcome change of pace, less "this book has a mission," more, "here are some interesting poems."
The book does have a kind of unity in Underwood's voice, though, with its dry-as-the-Gobi humor, its juggling of high culture and popular culture, its wit, its obliqueness, its quirky Syd Barrett style melodicism. I think I must have picked it up because I came across a poem of his I liked--in Granta, perhaps?--and taking that risk paid off, for I enjoyed the book greatly. (I went ahead and ordered the next collection).
I wonder what is going on in British poetry, which I admit to not having followed much for quite a while. Various poets I heard about (Robin Robertson, Carol Duffy, Christopher Reid, Mark Ford) I sampled and respected without feeling much enthusiasm. But I get the feeling some new current has entered the scene. Underwood's acknowledgement page tips the hat to Emily Berry, whom I also read this summer, and to Sam Riviere, whose novel Dead Souls and I have read about two-thirds of. Berry and Riviere's books were both excellent as well. Something's happening.
September 1, 2021
Some really good poems in this thing. "The bomb," "Theology," "Inventory of Friends," and that last poem. The sense of voice here is bright and clear, cutting past image and detail with a quiet, unique, and very funny tenderness. I think someone told me the book could be a little precious at times, but you know, that's what I like in a good poem anyway. This was my shit. That's why this thing was so lovely to me.
January 13, 2018
I loved this collection. It felt like a friend was telling me his confessions. Intimate, eloquent and adding humour to dark subjects. It has been mentioned by Kit Harrington of Game of thrones fame - how I heard about it. Superb. I will be re reading many times
February 16, 2024
'That people are unfinished and are made between each other' - This line from the poem 'Second' encapsulates this poetry book for me. The poem's narrators come into being through their relationships, often full of deep appreciation, love, loss, worry, and both fleeting and long-term connection.
November 11, 2020
It is hard for me to rate this book due to the fact that it is poetry, a form that is usually very personal and in tune with the person who writes it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t my cup of tea.
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February 13, 20233.5
i do rly like jack underwood's style. favourites: happiness, love poem, second, if thou must love me, a man dragging a dead dog, the ashes, sally and rina, thank you for your email
i do rly like jack underwood's style. favourites: happiness, love poem, second, if thou must love me, a man dragging a dead dog, the ashes, sally and rina, thank you for your email
October 25, 2015
Jack Underwood is one of the new young guns in British poetry. He has a Ph.D in creative writing and was on the cover of the last issue of Poetry London. Happiness, published eight years after he was awarded the Eric Gregory award, is a mixed bag of postures and emotions, and for the most part a very satisfying read. The title poem starts off with this personification:
Yesterday it appeared to me in the form of two purple
elastic bands round a bunch of asparagus, which was
a very small happiness, a garden variety, nothing like
the hulking conversation cross-legged on a bed we had
ten years ago, or when I saw it as a thin space in a mouth
that was open slightly listening to a friend pinning them
with an almost-cruel accuracy; the sense of being known
making a space in their mouth that was happiness.
After a few variations, it ends in this way:
Or/privately with you, when we’re watching television and
everyone else can be depressed as rotten logs for all we care,
because various and by degrees as it is, we know happiness
because it is not always usual, and does not wait to leave.
Underwood has an identifiable absurdist bent that looks back to the work of James Tate, whose recent passing was a great loss to U.S. poetry. Underwood is more inclined to make a poem with recognizable lyrical elements. He chiefly focuses on the domestic drama, even when he dabbles in social comment, as in "Some Gods": "God with merciful expression holding knife and fork; God as a female infant; God with stomach as gumball machine . . . God as your barely visible reflection in the eye of a dead robin."
The joy of this writing is in the ride, and I imagine that it appeals to the young adult poetry readers more than seasoned ones who may be looking for a little more life experience, gravity and substance. Even "Poem of Fear For My Future Child," which raises the specter of domestic tragedy from the viewpoint of a parent, is a little "too safe" because the tragedy is imagined, with no real skin in the game. Instead, Underwood's sweet spot is his ability to identify with and invest the emotional experience of a young adult with psychological complexity and pathos, which is a very neat accomplishment indeed.
Yesterday it appeared to me in the form of two purple
elastic bands round a bunch of asparagus, which was
a very small happiness, a garden variety, nothing like
the hulking conversation cross-legged on a bed we had
ten years ago, or when I saw it as a thin space in a mouth
that was open slightly listening to a friend pinning them
with an almost-cruel accuracy; the sense of being known
making a space in their mouth that was happiness.
After a few variations, it ends in this way:
Or/privately with you, when we’re watching television and
everyone else can be depressed as rotten logs for all we care,
because various and by degrees as it is, we know happiness
because it is not always usual, and does not wait to leave.
Underwood has an identifiable absurdist bent that looks back to the work of James Tate, whose recent passing was a great loss to U.S. poetry. Underwood is more inclined to make a poem with recognizable lyrical elements. He chiefly focuses on the domestic drama, even when he dabbles in social comment, as in "Some Gods": "God with merciful expression holding knife and fork; God as a female infant; God with stomach as gumball machine . . . God as your barely visible reflection in the eye of a dead robin."
The joy of this writing is in the ride, and I imagine that it appeals to the young adult poetry readers more than seasoned ones who may be looking for a little more life experience, gravity and substance. Even "Poem of Fear For My Future Child," which raises the specter of domestic tragedy from the viewpoint of a parent, is a little "too safe" because the tragedy is imagined, with no real skin in the game. Instead, Underwood's sweet spot is his ability to identify with and invest the emotional experience of a young adult with psychological complexity and pathos, which is a very neat accomplishment indeed.
August 23, 2015
I absolutely loved this collection - the range is fantastic, and the exactness of the imagery Underwood uses is incredible. It's not oblique and obscuring to the point of ridiculousness, but he approaches subjects from just the right off-kilter angle, to summon what he means; 'I had a worry in my chest like the bad layer/of an onion', someone loves like 'tennis played by amateurs', a steak is a 'question,/hung in itself,/about blood.'
And those are just some random quotes I picked out flicking back through it.
More impressively, I feel he writes very well about love and - you guessed it - happiness in a way that is un-cynical, un-sentimental and touching, and for that I can only take my hat off to him.
Most of all this collection filled me with relish for the form, and desire to go back and fine-tune all my own work, which is very useful indeed.
Wonderful stuff.
And those are just some random quotes I picked out flicking back through it.
More impressively, I feel he writes very well about love and - you guessed it - happiness in a way that is un-cynical, un-sentimental and touching, and for that I can only take my hat off to him.
Most of all this collection filled me with relish for the form, and desire to go back and fine-tune all my own work, which is very useful indeed.
Wonderful stuff.
October 2, 2023
I love this it's my favourite poetry book of all time and the poems line the inside of my brain and heart. sometimes I randomly remember a beautiful line or phrase and I'm just. enamoured.
I've read these poems and some from a year in the new life so much that I can accidentally recite some off by heart.
ugh
I've read these poems and some from a year in the new life so much that I can accidentally recite some off by heart.
ugh
August 3, 2015
Clever short book of poems - some lovely, some so-so, but the good ones are worth the read. Deeply enjoyed it. Savored it, really.
January 18, 2016
Not my cup of tea, too vague, too inaccessible, just not my cup of tea.
October 10, 2023
I especially loved the prose poems/vignettes.
July 20, 2015
Conversation inviting poems to savor and share.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews