Roy Fisher (1930-2017)
Roy Fisher is one of those poets who are highly regarded by critics and readers who know his work, and yet nowhere near as well known as he should be.
This poem is an extract from Talking to Cameras, the first part of the sequence ‘Texts for a Film’. I laughed the first time I read it. As he explains, a Birmingham screwdriver is a hammer, I grew up in Coventry, about 20 miles from Birmingham, and I often heard the phrase. It’s one of those faintly humorous regional insults that abound in the UK, suggesting something about the craftsmanship and craftsmen from Birmingham.
But Fisher takes what is an insult and turns it into a mediation on a way of thinking. It’s the shift, and the humour, that distinguishes this poem.
The poem is taken from ‘The Long and Short of it, poems 1955-2010 (new edition 2012) Bloodaxwe books.