The title pandemonium seems wrong for a collection as collected as this. For although Andrew McMillan is writing about a period of turbulence involving the depression of his partner, the death of his sister’s baby and various reckonings with himself, the overall quality is of stunned calm. He is not only at the eye of the storm, he is the eye of the storm. It is a fascinating collection – troubling and moving to read. Its atmosphere is distinct from his earlier books physical (2015) – an interrogation of masculinity – and playtime (2018) – an exploration of gay adolescence. And this is because there is no poem in it unmarked by suffering. Pain, in these poems, becomes a form of clarity. And, in his charming and modest way, McMillan has mastered the art of self-reproach. He reproves himself early on, in an untitled piece, for failing to spot his partner’s slide into depression, realising “too late what is about to happen”, recording how, after he said “something unconsidered”, his partner curled up “like a draught excluder”.
Draughts prove, at least metaphorically, impossible to exclude. In the poem that follows, routine, he admits his partner to A&E where the wards are overflowing (no need to ask why) and keeps him company, sleeping overnight “on the tiled floor like a dog”. The poem relives a hectic crisis and yet, on the page, becomes trauma recollected in tranquillity. We are later shown how, just as it is possible to miss early signs of depression, it is easy to celebrate too soon. McMillan writes especially keenly about false seasons and false senses of security. In uncivil, he describes: “unseasonal daffodils/curling up tricked/by the few good days we’ve had” and in another untitled poem, behaves like the daffodils himself:
each year I’m tricked by early spring
the eye of winter when the grey slips off
Yet, as poet, he is neither absent nor tricked; he is on high alert. His sister’s stillborn son is another false spring – and he writes a beautiful sequence dedicated to George 1.8.19-1.8.19:
no one is sure how we should look after
this sadness uninvited unwelcome
This, taken in context, comes across as a maternal quandary and there is a gentle restraint to settling for “sadness” as a word, not writing it up into anything grander. And then:
it’s days before my parents sleep again
their daughter gone to grief
their other daughter stoic
Again “gone to grief” tells you plainly all you need to know. Sometimes, when life hits hard, it is best to travel light as a writer – events have their own charge. McMillan knows this and warns that safety is an illusion:
sometimes the world untucks itself goes feral
gives us rain a month’s worth in a single hour
“Untuck” is also a satisfying, simple verb. It works hard for its keep, suggestive of unmade bed and sleeplessness.
The last sequence of poems, knotweed, will divert gardeners. McMillan once again casts himself as the man missing crucial signs – failing to spot the weeds:
how many evenings have I thought the garden done
walked out and seen fresh clumps of weed mithering
the dirt some people cannot tell the difference
between what should be there and not I’m one of them
ignorant till one thing overgrows another
or gets choked
The truth is that most of us “cannot tell the difference” – we cultivate our illusions unseeingly, miss what stares us in the face. The garden in this poem is a revealing place – dependably metaphorical. McMillan does not miss much in this exceptional vigil of a book.
• pandemonium by Andrew McMillan is published by Jonathan Cape (£10). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
