Throughout Owen Sheers 2005 collection Skirrid Hill there is a pervading atmosphere of disintegration and breakdown. The subject of this loss ranges from ageing to the transition between youth and adulthood and perhaps most poignantly the disintegration of relationships. Sheers indeed deals with relationships with his national identity, the environment and one s own masculinity, yet it is the poems that deal with human relationships that best explore whether relationships progress beyond isolated, connected moments. These poems (Night Windows, Valentine, Winter Swans, Marking Time, Show, Keyways, Landmark) for the most part strongly support the statement that relationships cannot progress beyond isolated moments. Ultimately, Sheers cynical indictment of intimate relationships is that they fundamentally disappoint the intoxicating intensity of sex and love cannot survive the banality of everyday life and more importantly cannot stand the test of time and so thus Sheers presents relationships as powerful and all consuming yet temporary and fleeting.
Firstly, it is important to note Sheers note on the title preceding the collection. Skirrid: from the Welsh Ysgyrid, meaning divorce or separation. This note is crucial to an understanding of relationships in the collection as it reveals the overlying themes of breakdown and the deterioration of things. Hill references a mountain often referred to locally as just The Skirrid in the easterly Black Mountains in Wales and the rich mythology surrounding the mountain reinforces the view that Skirrid Hill is all about loss and change as according to legend, part of the mountain is said to have been broken off at the moment of the crucifixion of Jesus. Immediately therefore, within the context of relationships, Sheers presents a certain heightened connection of relationships that will inevitably shatter or subside. There are a set of relationship poems early on in Skirrid Hill that firmly support the critical statement, as Sheers strongly suggests that relationships are intense and a power struggle, but that the connection is transitory and short lived. The collection`s first love poem is also the collection s first sonnet. Marking Time is a deeply sexual poem in which Sheers describes a vigorous love-making session with a partner which resulted in a carpet-burn scar upon her back. This, in many ways, mimics the farrier, in that it is an intimate physical act between a male and female whereby the female comes off permanently scarred. The image of the loose flaps of skin being like two tattered flags flying from your spine s mast connotes the phrase tie your colours to the mast , giving the impression that this was a moment of his permanent attachment to this partner. This sea-faring image calls upon the imagery of wrecked voyagers in Valentine, emphasising the survivalist co-dependence of relationships. Furthermore, the Marking in the title can be seen to suggest a show of male dominance, just as an animal would mark his territory the man feels the carnal instinct to mark his woman. In this way, Sheers is presenting relationships as a matter of possession and domination, similar to how Sheers refers to my valentine in Valentine and perhaps also the act of loading you in Night Windows, where the woman is clearly the object of the sentence. By likening the scar to lovers who carve trees , Sheers continues the theme of comparing that world of nature to the world of man, and the permanence of the natural world could suggest the permanence of the impression the man has made upon the woman. Ultimately, as Sheers notes in the first line of the sonnet, the mark is finally fading, indicating that even the physical impression left by such an intimate moment will subside as the way their memory will, and when read in an elegiac tone, it appears that the speaker is recognising the inevitability of separation. However, the poem ends on a note of ambiguity as Sheers remarks the loving scar remains. The oxymoron is prominent as the reader is shown a symbol of love and hurt. The fact that it is changed suggests that time heals emotional hurt but remains suggests the lasting effect of lost love. Therefore, Sheers presents relationships as inevitably doomed to failure, and that the impacts, while lessened with time, carry a lasting and permanent impact.
A further poem that indicates that Sheers presents relationships as unable to move past isolated, connected moments in Farther, the pun in the title referencing the growing distance between Father and son. The long, unbroken stanza of the poem lends a certain continuity to their walk up Skirrid Hill, suggesting the unimpaired progression of time and thus the difficulty of maintaining perfect relationships. In Farther , Sheers refers to the myth that Skirrid Hill was formed at the moment of the crucifixion by God s grief, yet deliberately imbuing this with ambiguity as he simply refers to the crucifixion as a father s grief at the loss of his son to man. By describing it in such broad terms, Sheers encourages us to see it as being analogous to the situation between him and his own father, or the situation between the father and son in Hill Fort. Therefore, Sheers is presenting any father-son relationship as unique and potentially saddening. In your bent head the colour of rocks, Sheers recognises his father s frailty and ageing. Also, the alliteration of his father s short and sharp and solitary breath is a further indicative of his father s mortality. The tone of the poem strongly suggests that the poet is unable to enjoy the seemingly invigorating activity of climbing the hill with his father as he is coming to terms with his father s mortality. The most poignant act of Farther however is that of the picture Sheers takes of the pair. The speaker waits for the blink that would tell him that he had caught this. The word caught is symbolic of the isolation of the rare moment of connection between Sheers and his father. Once again, Sheers ends Farther with an oxymoron - with every step apart, I m another closer to you. Evidently, Sheers presents permanent emotional connection as unachievable as he perfectly captures the pain of relationships mortality.
In conclusion, in Skirrid Hill sheers addresses the fundamental nature of relationships, juxtaposing transience and permanence, succession and stability. Ultimately, the critical statement that relationships cannot progress beyond isolated, connected moments holds true in Skirrid Hill, as Sheers expertly contrasts the brevity and impermanence of love and sex with the emotional turmoil induced by the theme of mortality and Sheers own strained relationship with his father.
