‘words squawk
           they leap
            they cannot settle’

            (truly twice about you I cannot speak the same sentence)

More than most poets, Arthur Amon is a word player.  The games may take the form of misquotation, allusion or sheer invention but the great thing is that the reader is involved from the outset.
There are 52 poems in the book, varying form three lines (strange house) to six pages (13 ways of looking at a cockroach).  An indication that what you see is what you get is found on the contents page: ‘errant knight’ for instance, or ‘mental floss’ – not to mention ‘the snails of Grey Lynn’,  ‘things not to write about’ or ‘we had a dead horse in our ceiling’.
In his acknowledgements, the poet mentions that “people and events depicted” are real – not just cats and dogs but mynahs, centipedes, maggots and of course cockroaches.  There is also a very real McDonald’s with a ‘weird old entrance…

                                    ‘what a grandiose grand entrance
                                                what a grander of a gander of a grandma
                                                                        of an entrance
                                                                        it’s a funnel
                                                it’s a tunnel
                                    it’s a jingle
                        it’s a jungle
            a funnel tunnel jingle jungle jangle of an entrance’

                                                                        (we sat there in McDonalds, you and I)

Among the games I mentioned allusion, by which I mean not just misquotation but a substitution of like sounds in a familiar pattern: ‘come to my arms / thou gleamish girl’ (Refugee Appeal); ‘the four jokers / of my apocalypse’ (genetic engineering) ‘my dam is busted / my bank is rupt / the chickens are home to boot’ (when one hug is the world).
As for the title:  the work MATCH includes the definition ‘to treat as an equal’ (the poet assumes that our imagination will rise to his invention).  The word SAFETY includes, ‘unlikely to cause hurt’ – but don’t count on it.  This, despite appearances, is emphatically not a book of humorous poems.  It is more a case of…

                                    ‘that piano piece
                                                where everything comes together
                                                            the discords and the harmonies
balancing like oceans

                                                and every word scores a 50-point bonus’

                                                                                                (what I wish for you)

Poems of the exploration of being, opening doors and unexpected windows.  Not forgetting the 50-point bonus for those readers who love words and their manipulation.

Strike a Light

The latest volume of poems from Arthur Amon sneaks up on you like a prowling cat, continually tangling its claws playfully in the fabric of your imagination. There is little point in trying to remain aloof. You find yourself drawn into the game, teasing and taunting the metaphors, while occasionally a quick sharp simile slices the skin, reminding you that there is lithe animal menace at hand.

Amon is always fun, whether it's the 'gentle rain from heaven' of maggots testifying to the dead horse in the ceiling, or the 'persimmonious' reworking of Williams' famous poem 'This is just to say' as 'Jo's phone message'. As a poet, he never forgets his first duty of entertainment - the court jester with a love of ridicule, transcendence and the dance of meaning. There is always the sense of his own enjoyment, to which we are invited and from which we drink.

If a single word could carry this collection, it would have to be 'delight'. There is an irrepressible joy bubbling up from the heart of these poems, which is impossible to resist. Amon loves words, and his devotion to them allows us to get seduced a little as well. Heaven restores a cat's plundered testicles, 'motoring his pouncer'. A wedding is fanfared as 'the spring of our discotheque'. Always there is movement and energy; a constant verbal jig with phrases whirling and nouns skittering.

But it would be a pleasant mistake to skate the surface of these poems. They contain rifts and chasms - the dark shadows of caves with gloomy interiors. Amon is aware that 'words / are a gin trap; / jagged metal tearing through one leg, / pain like a loaf of bread / rising up through the body'. His use of the phrase 'this howling sorrow, this thing departed' is that of a craftsman in 'Villain (-elle)'. And the pain and pathos in 'like a small fish, you were drawn to the light' is just far enough off-screen to be overwhelming: 'in time the ginger-ale / goes flat in my fridge / and the neighbour's dog howls a frozen wind / no life is left in the kitchen'.

The title 'Safety Matches' comes from the poem 'training', with its aching lament for the love searched for but never found: 'no face flames / with a striking smile'. But in this collection, Amon has definitely scraped the head of his own creative talent along the rough strip of human experience. It has struck a spark, briefly flaring into a pool of light which beggars the darkness. Here is a major and maturing talent, not to be ignored.