Poems from Agenda, Ambit, Magma, Stand, The Compass, Manchester review, North, Rialto, etc.
"dressing for the afterlife" - i.e. preparing a role for a new phase of life. And what better place to look for tips than Hollywood - its techniques and case studies. The past is a useful place to look as well. It's a strong yet not limiting theme. Here are the titles and a few extracts from the first few poems -
She Ran I took up running when I turned forty ... I ran past every town in which I'd ever lived. I ran past all my exes ... I couldn't get as far as I wanted I begin the twenty-twenties as a silent film goddess I became Clara. I became Louise ... At last I had a voice but no-one wanted to hear and there she was in the shrunken apartment like Joan Crawford, toy dog on her lap but there's armour in glamour the floating woman I am absent in our family portraits but I am here sand memoir generations have shifted ... my daughters demand pizza order in perfect English then I reconsidered prayer In summer I went back to the chapel in my father's austere village ... When the young priest entered he was so kind that I almost thought it was OK to be me.
I like "Awake in his castle" - very little padding compared to others' poems on that theme. After that there are a few (only a few) more average pieces, reminders that the title could also be using "dressing" as in "salad dressing" to make things more palatable. Then there's "Poem in which I lick motherhood". What does "lick motherhood" mean? Succeed at it? Knock it into shape? Try it, like a lollipop? Here are the first/last 3 lines -
- "I have several children, all perfect, with tongues made of soap and PVA glue running through their veins" - Of course, a mother would say that her children are perfect. Soap is used to wash mouths of children who swear. Doing crafts with children is a parent's duty.
- "My boys and girls benefit from eating the rainbow" - Whereas the first line's metaphors can be normalised, this second line is more stubbornly surreal. If you want, recall the nutritionists' suggestion that eating food with a range of colours increases the chance of eating a range of vitamins and minerals.
- "I iron children twice daily. Creases are the devil's hoof print" - Perhaps the children have iron supplements twice a day. More likely there's always ironing to do. There's a hint that the children may also need disciplining, that imperfection is sinful, reflecting on the parents
- ...
- "Underneath my ribs is a complex weather system of sunshine and showers" - What is under a mother's ribs? A heart, or (when standing) a womb? Do sunshine and showers create rainbows?
- "Heat rises from me and blows across the gulf stream of my carefully controlled temper" - The gulf stream is a path through the pathless ocean, a way to navigate through life
- "Sometimes I am mist" - A pun on "missed". The first 3 lines all mentioned children. These last 3 don't mention them at all. The persona has become less central, more vague - an environment rather than a person.
The poem comes from her thematically-related Happenstance pamphlet, Instructions for making me. About half of that 2016 pamphlet is here including "The Horse" another of my favourites.
There's transitioning between 1st and 3rd person - the "I" of the present looking at the "she" of the past, etc. In "What it was like" "The stranger I used to be lives in the present now". What responsibility do we have to our past? Should we bother attempting to preserve continuity? In "My stranger" the (let's say female) persona has hung a painting in the entrance hall. She tries to convince visitors that it's her father by providing anecdotes, going so far as to claim it's a self-portrait. Finally we read that "Dad never lived to paint us all. What a terrible loss, visitors sigh. I lead them into a living room and whisper, Yes." So perhaps there's regret that reality didn't match the story, but because it's the past, reality's more easily changed. She uses the new, improved father to cover cracks in her current life - changing one's past is a way of recreating oneself. If you can't go back, you can afford to be selective -
- In "Learning the steps" "We dance to learn about a part of ourselves books can't teach ... We're learning the steps of old island lives ... We leap like salmon, trying to catch scent of home"
- "Songbird" has "she didn't keep any letters to remind herself who she really was" and ends with "You can't release that bird anywhere - there's no country on any map for her to return".
- Mr Alessi is "trying to make a garden out of his life"
And the purpose of it all? We know little of the personae's challenges ahead - no mid-life crisis looms - though "Role Model" ends with "I'd like to be the woman next door with a walk that says I know where I'm going".
Other reviews
- Carol Rumens (My Stranger, Guardian poem of the week)
- Matthew Stewart (a huge step forward from her already impressive first book)
- Juliano Zaffino
- Atrium
- the poet's comments on 'My stranger'
- Sarah James (Another reading of the collection ... is the sense of everything in continuous flow. Water is a recurring image. )
- Neil Fulwood
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