A Review of 'Beans and Other Poems' by Mark Jones

I was given this quirky little collection of poetry to read by my friend and fellow Plymouth poet, Mark Jones, to whom I promised I would write a review. I hope I can do it justice.

Before even passing the cover, any reader can take a guess at what they're in for: a bizarre blend of poems which refuses to take mundane topics seriously, and having been labelled 'surrealist', it's little wonder why. Perusing through this pick 'n' mix of poetry, you are greeted with something different with every turn of the page, from the comically blunt and witty to the absurdly self-expository. It is, admittedly, a bit hit-and-miss as to whether you get Jones's obscure concepts - 'Love in the form of croquet balls' may be something we'll never quite understand - but his word choices are often some of the most fitting you'll ever encounter. 'Terror at 10:27pm' provides you with 'nasal ambulance calls', while the titular 'Beans' recreates the humble can of beans as erupting with 'volcano juice'. 

He deals with things we, as humble humans, encounter on an almost everyday basis - aside from sultana siblings and robot tomatoes, maybe. Food, if you couldn't already guess by the title, is a notably dominant theme in this volume, presented in often spasmodically rhymed stanzas. This does let down a few of the poems by interrupting the apparently uniform rhyme scheme, while other times a cheeky forced rhyme pushes things back into recognisable form, evident in poems like 'Seagull' and the unexpectedly witty 'Power Danger' ('Ranger Danger' maybe?) 

One thing a reader will soon become aware of, however, is that Mark Jones has instated himself as the King of the deprecatingly terse sentence, reducing the versatile burger to an 'Artery clogging/Weight gainer' and the loathsome seagull to a 'High flying shitter'. He's certainly not messing around. With wit-laced gems like 'Save the Eggs for Later' and 'Spoonsmith', this man's unexpected humour is one to look out for. A little awkward, but full of confidence – and certainly better received than the flatulence one might expect from consuming this volume’s namesake.

To anyone wishing to check out more from Mark Jones, you can follow this link to his Facebook page, Jonesthepoet.