I heard about this collection some time before it was printed. Michael Stewart read some of the pieces at Huddersfield Literature Festival in 2022, and he explained the concept of the collection:
“The Dogs is a book about what humans have done to the world and what we have done to ourselves. Specifically, it is a book about ‘Man’s best friend’ — their origin myths, and their place in the world before they were co-opted into human society and ideas of pure breeding and dysgenics. The Dogs also imagines a future where dogs have developed the power of speech; led by the non-violent UnderDogs and the more radical direct-action Der UberHünd, the animals of the world begin demanding their rights.”
The realisation of that concept in 49 poems, in three sections, is more elaborate and varied than I was expecting, both in terms of the ideas that are examined, and the styles in which the pieces are written and presented on the page. The collection deals with many complex and universal themes, but the treatment of ideas is built up out of concrete details, and engagement with the reader’s senses and emotions.
The book opens with a one-and-a-half page introduction. One of the things this conveys is the reason why I could never keep a dog. I could not bear the responsibility. I have inherited a sensitivity from my father, regarding animals. I don’t like animals, simply because they cannot talk to me and tell me they are happy. And so, I felt raw by the time I had finished my first reading of The Dogs.
The acknowledgments include a mention of Crow by Ted Hughes. Another poet this collection reminds me of is Adrian Mitchell. This is because of the combination of the literal, the personified, and the metaphorical in the subjects of the poems; the use of some non-standard typography, in combination with images (by Louis Benoit) and the way that the individual and the present is combined with the historical, social, and political.
I have just re-visited the collection to count how many of the pieces have a conventional rhyme scheme. I was surprised to find that there is only one. That is an indication that Michael Stewart is a poet who knows how to write free verse that reads like poetry, rather than, as the so-called traditionalists say, ‘prose cut up into bits’.
Every reader will find their own personal associations and reflections in this rich collection. The most poignant of mine came to me while I was reading the third and final section. I recall a punk I met in Leeds in unusual and constrained circumstances in the spring of 1984. He had a Mohican, and was wearing leather, chains, Doc Martens, and a tartan mini-skirt. On the back of his red biker’s jacket was written what I took to be the name of a band. In Gothic script, it said ENGLISH DOGS. He was in a cage, with no food or water.
iamhyperlexic 