• Second Wind by Fiona Sinclair 
• Precious Mettle by Sarah Wallis
• Never wear white by Susan Darlington
• Transitional Spaces by Kate Behrens
• Life’s Stink and Honey by Lynn Valentine
• wild chamomile by Elizabeth Kelly
• Postcards from Ragnarok by Katy Naylor
• How to be a Dressing Gown by Charlotte Oliver
• Learning from the Body by Sue Butler
• Traumatropic Heart by Susan Darlington
• Hanging Fire by Louise Longson
• A Glimmer of Stars by Lynn Valentine
• When I think of my body as a horse by Wendy Pratt

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Second Wind by Fiona Sinclair

From the perspective of a milestone birthday, the poems in Second Wind by Fiona Sinclair resurrect memories of family and friends and the impact of Covid, which included the decision by Fiona’s partner to buy a motorbike. Through an eclectic mix of topics, this collection offers insight into the experience of life, with all its complexity and emotions.

The title poem refers to the shift in balance when one half of a relationship retires from work and finds free time for their interests, while the other continues to follow the same daily routine.

At Aintree, your black Crombie with a flash of red shirt 
draws You look cool man tributes from booted and suited lads, 
and your trademark hair, splendid as a crest, 
has older men, smoothing bald-pates and saying Nice cut mate. 

…all I could throw together  
is beige shift dress, dun coat, grey hat, 
a pheasant hen’s dowdy plumage. 

Then Covid happened. The virus is neatly introduced in ‘Forfeit year’; This is a year where ordinary life is mothballed. Many people found themselves with time on their hands and ‘Rush’ tells how Fiona reacted to her partner’s purchase of a motorbike.

And jealousy abrades
at this old passion rekindled,
as if I have reluctantly agreed to an infidelity,
because I have nothing comparable in my past
to give me this Woo Hoo! high.

One of the conditions was for Fiona, fast approaching her 60th birthday, to learn to ride pillion. A non-biker, with teenage memories of being …warned  against rough biker boys who were as dangerous as their machines… her partner was undaunted by this lack of experience, as described with great humour in ‘Menage’;

So, you construct a mock-up with stool, chair, sofa arm; instruct me in 
the protocol of mounting. I sit astride. Would you feel comfortable on that?
I nod, forgetting this cycle simulator is not moving at 80 mph.

Covid and the new motorbike also impacted preparations for Fiona’s 60th birthday. In ‘New Tricks’, the birthday outfit is replaced by …biker armour, donning the deadweight jacket…all fingers and thumbs with the helmet. ‘60th birthday’ describes how the day itself was celebrated with a …blast down to Margate,

for ships and ice cream on the seafront, is gift enough,
because you’re coaxing me, at 60, 
on the back of a motor bike is the new adventure, 
every bit as exotic as my eyes scaling  
the great pyramids, and still part of you, 
pivoting my life 360 degrees. 

Sharing a motorbike requires confidence and trust on both sides, as well as the ability to cope with the reactions of others.  ‘A chorus of disapproval’ shows how quickly some people critique decisions they don’t understand, but the final lines give Fiona the last words.

Although I confess that on curfew quiet country roads  
I dare myself to outstretch arms, then squeal as you join me, 
and we motor along in bird flight simulation. 

The style of this collection is Free Verse with the subject matter taking a Realist approach. Each poem is like a mirror. They reflect life in non-structured, conversational tones, and the more familiar I became with this poetic style, the more I was attracted to Fiona’s voice.

Some poems revisit childhood, where the reader is introduced to friends and family members. ‘Connoisseurs of Comedy’ describes the father as a comedian, making fun of the neighbours and watching comedy classics on TV;

his appreciation of a particularly good sketch  
acknowledged with a smile, 
while Mum and I cackled throughout 
until we got stitches, hiccups…

In a later poem, there are hints of all not being well. ‘Daddies’ Girls’ addresses the differences between being an adored daughter and an unwanted one;

Yet, for some fathers, ‘It’s a girl‘ means the sour taste 
of disappointment at no son to kick a football with.  
So, a cursory look into the cradle 
And these daughters will take as norm 
their joyful ‘Hello Daddy’ answered with a nod.

Fiona’s poems observe a range of topics. In ‘Bold as Brass’, an urban fox trots onwards in Titian pelt and black accessorised glamour while ‘In our faces’ follows a street lady who pushes her ‘found’ supermarket trolley down Canterbury High Street. There are travel poems with references to the Adhan in Egypt and Istanbul. ‘Call’ reminded me of my own first experience of the full-throated Adhan that repeats throughout the day;

…But the frequency of this call
interrupts shopping mall racket, social media gibberish, 
and summons up my devout atheist’s soul 
as I close my eyes to listen.

‘Nile’ begins with a view overlooking the river, listening to a cacophony of Adhans;

I appropriate, for the duration, a river-facing sunbed, 
where holiday reading must compete with the west bank, 
that is an infinite frieze of crops, minarets, palm trees,,,
painted in a Dulux colour chart of green.  

‘Still’, set in Istanbul, takes the reader to the Suleymaniye Mosque with images created through the everyday conversational style which is the hallmark of this collection.

…Suddenly, the mosque’s Adhan rings out, 
triggering hundreds of others that peal across 
both banks of the city like human bells, 
the sound taps on my soul’s shoulder, 
and tears openly dribble down my face.

Second Wind, published by Dempsey and Windle, is one of many collections written by Fiona Sinclair. These include the Time Traveller’s Picnic and A Talent for Hats,  After reading Second Wind, I’m now looking forward to discovering more of Fiona’s poetry in her other collections.

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Precious Mettle by Sarah Wallis

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Never Wear White by Susan Darlington

 

 

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 Transitional Spaces by Kate Behrens

Published in The High Window, Winter 2022 edition. https://thehighwindowpress.com/2022/11/29/reviews-winter-2022/#Kate%20Behrens 

Transitional Spaces is Kate Behren’s fourth collection. It was the first one I’d read and now I’m eager to discover more. Kate’s poems are deft, with the lightness of touch which comes from confident editing. Many images felt unique, and the vocabulary was broad enough for me to learn new words like phocine, susurrus, luciferous and hispid. ‘Ecliptic light’ (‘Elective Surgery’) is described as a band of sunshine through comet dust, while col legno (‘Veils Failing’), the musical term for striking the instrument with its bow, was a perfect choice for the repeated tapping of a twig. The poems reached the edge of my personal language skills and when this happens, it always leaves me a little bit excited at the stretch of my own knowledge; one of many rewards this collection has to offer.

A palette of colour runs throughout; red, green, blue, black (lots of black), Ucello’s darks and the pairing of off-white, French blues and glow-worm green with ‘fields hispid with lit shoots…like sodden bridal veils.’ in ‘Hints from Colour’ while ‘The Colours of Paris, 1984’ includes pearl, tabby, phthalo blue (blue on the green side) umber and transparent. I was intrigued by the idea of transparent as a colour. The ‘yelling vitrier with his barrow of glass’ suggests clarity but glass can be stained, so maybe transparent is any colour pale enough to see through. Kate’s words and phrases often sent me off on unexpected tangents and I love collections which do this.

Birds and animals inhabit many poems, alongside an abundance of trees and flowers. The elements are present, especially air and water, while many poems show the poet’s keen observation. ‘Wind-bullied trees gather’ in ‘Waking Reflection’, the ‘thrown-sand sound of rain’ falls in ‘Anniversary poem’ while ‘Chalkland’ has ‘transitional spaces / where only skies mark’ and ‘the faecal-honey smells / from a lit field of rape’ – a perfect description of the distinct stink of oilseed rape once it’s coming to an end. In ‘Pushing Through Sultry Days’ the sound of buzzing flies surrounds ‘the thickened silence of the dead’ while one of my favourite poems, ‘Deep Winter’, describes how trees ‘shed a strange ice / like colourless kaleidoscope / glass’. The reference to death in this poem stayed long after I read it: ‘What remains, challenges, / from so high above us / is an unreadable language…the thought returns: / we’re fortunate / to be here.’ 

Many transitions imply benefits. Liminal places like stations and airports contain the hope for new experiences while birth, career change or new love, are often welcome. However, transitional loss, such as a breakup or death, nearly always bring grief and tears. Finality and loss are infinite. These are transitions without end. This collection has a sense of a poet dealing with the aftermath of death. ‘Weightlessness’ is ‘To the memory of my father’, ‘Your Sister’s Tapestry Cushion’ ‘i.m (in memory) my grandmother, Culler and her sister, Den’ while ‘Anniversary poem’ is ‘i.m. of my twin, Sophie Behrens’. The latter contains lines which might refer to the often-reported final dream where a loved one reappears. Always unsettling, the experience can temporarily feel like they have returned after a long absence:

As a face appears
clearer than it has,
from imminent proximity

the afterlife of love
wakes us as survivors,

yet each unclear breath
struggles out from buried love.

For me, this poem had particular resonance. Death-grief is best understood by others with similar experiences, but – in one way or another – we’re all survivors, and touching those with similar darkness can be one of the great comforts of poetry.

I also identified with the final stanza of ‘Colours of Paris, 1984’. This poem deals with age as transitional:

Where did it all end, where did we belong?
Our youthful hearts:
not padlocked to bridges but cast adrift on an onrush of moments.

I liked the eclectic style of this collection. ‘Elective Surgery’, ‘Neck Traction’ and ‘The Tree Surgeon’ all emerge from practicalities while ‘The Naked Seventies’, ‘Reworking’ and ‘Shoppers in Mayfair’ offer glimpses into different lives. Yet, regardless of the topic, all the poems have a depth which often sent me back to re-read and experience it again.

As I made my way through the collection, I realised how poetry itself contains multiple transitions. Readers come to a new poem without knowing what to expect and by the end, they’ve often experienced a different way of seeing or being. I found much in Transitional Spaces to identify with. Whether it’s the honesty of ‘I tell him my body is ruined’ in ‘Dream Lover’ or how experience is best when it doesn’t drag but tugs …for something / you’d been deaf and blind to…’ from ‘Inside the Poem’, Kate’s fourth collection strikes at the heart of human experience.

For me, ‘Untitled’ best summed up Transitional Spaces. The reader is not sure who is being referred to and, as in many of these poems, it doesn’t matter because the words and images are enough. The closing (unpunctuated) lines of ‘Untitled’ offer echoing advice which also provides a perfect closure for this review:

we have no story to tell
alone each is fiction
the whole untellable

let the poem
unravel on its own

Transitional Spaces by Kate Behrens £9.99 Two Rivers Press 978-1-909747-94-4

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Life’s Stink and Honey by Lynn Valentine

This review first appeared in The High Window, Summer 2022.

The title of this collection, ‘Life’s Stink and Honey’, grabbed my attention from the start. For me, the juxtaposition of opposites reflects the themes running throughout these poems where working-class identity, poverty and childlessness, mingle with love and a deep appreciation for the landscapes and creatures of the natural world.

The 21^st century is a time for even more women to step forward and speak of what has previously been avoided. Female poets have continued to gain a personal voice and have the means to increase its volume through the power of digital access. I’ve met Lynn in online workshops and it’s possible I might not have come across these poems otherwise. I’m so glad I found her! Lynn is not afraid to tackle difficult subjects head-on and shows great skill at merging the personal with the universal. These poems reassure the reader they are not alone in their experiences of death, loss and grief while also containing reminders that despite the difficulties, there is still much beauty, love and hope to be found in the world.

Many of the poems deal with poverty, a state all too familiar to those from working-class backgrounds, where it’s a struggle to pay for heating and food. It’s a world with never enough to go around so parents stay hungry while juggling the pennies. ‘Junk Drawer Day’ refers to ‘snipping winter kale for breakfast’ when you’re still days away from payday while ‘Born in the Slums’ seeks to emphasise the kindness of neighbours and existence of laughter, even though the basics are denied. There is no central heating, colour tv, or three meals a day, while prawn cocktail crisps are a luxury.

Those who know what it is to be poor will feel resonance with the freezing cold of an outside loo or the hunger of seeing a queue at the chippy when you can’t afford to join them. Poverty never leaves you and reminders are threaded throughout the poems. ‘Winter soup’ contains lines about ‘the mother who has to eke the last – of the beets to feed her hungry girls’ while ‘Winter Night’ speaks of the need to sell books to buy bread and parents who ‘…choose – to go hungry, take a third cup of weak – tea while children eat’. Food vouchers are ‘scrunched – down in purses’ which ‘blush-red with shame’ as choice is reduced to ‘Pasta, milk, tins’ or a ‘sweetie – hidden for the middle one’s birthday.’

Poverty and working-class too often exist side by side. In ‘The Cleaners’, Lynn writes about the ‘unknown people’, those who society depends on to keep the environment safe. They include Lynn’s father, ‘a council man’ who drove a snowplough to clear the streets in the early hours of the morning. Often clearing up after accidents and ‘clearing roadside drains, – other people’s silt and shit’, Lynn knew from an early age how to check for Weil’s Disease, a bacterial infection caused by rat’s urine contaminating water. ‘Ma faither at fower a.m.’, written in the Scots language at which Lynn is so adept, offers a glimpse of this life where ‘Mornins, ma faither whistled – as if the world wis his alane,’ and how the children ‘dreamit o Dad, – this suddent sneeze o a snawploo – chairgin tae life in his hands….as he clearit thi street, tried no tae – rouse the sleeper, the fidgeting bairns, folk bundilt in their jammies,’.

The collection contains a number of poems written in the Scots language.  Lynn won the Hedgehog Poetry’s dialect competition (2020), and was runner-up in the Scots category of the Wigtown Poetry Prize (Scots category, 2021) with Thi Loast Bairn.

In Lynn’s first collection, ‘A Glimmer o Stars’, the Scots poems were printed alongside their English translation. In ‘Life’s Stink and Honey’ these poems stand-alone, showing off Lynn’s growing confidence in the use of her language, best heard as well as read. In the video below, Lynn reads ‘The Aunties’ from ‘Life’s Stink and Honey’.

The theme of childlessness is threaded throughout; a difficult subject but one which Lynn handles with great skill and emotion. ‘Sheela Na Gig, Rodel’, describes visiting a church on the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. The origins of the ancient carving of Sheela Na Gig’s is thought to represent fertility in the shape of a ‘hallowed, unholy mother’, and Lynn writes with feeling of how her ‘barren belly – concaves in the wet – afternoon, my waterproof – the only second skin I’ll own.’

‘Caring for Shrimps’ has the saddest of lines ‘Remember when we tried to make babies?’ while in ‘At Hallgrimskirkja’, Lynn imagines herself with ‘a belly drumming under my best woollen jumper’.

In some poems, I think childlessness is more disguised, as it so often is in real life. Family and friends ask the age-old questions about starting a family or hearing the patter of tiny feet, and answers have to be found which satisfy while also camouflaging grief. ‘At Culbin Sands’ deals with loss, but without naming the source. In the final stanza, ‘My voice gives way to pain’ is followed by the observation of a bar-tailed godwit looking for a meal in the surf. It’s a reminder of how the natural world continues to exist. Sometimes this awareness can offer solace, as in one of my favourite poems in the collection which is ‘Gloamin’. Here the poet reminds us of the existence of something larger:

And you look out of the window
and look    really look
the mountains low
still snowed    bunkered
into winter still
the sky high
the everlasting orange and blue

And you think
this is why
This   This

‘Life’s Stink and Honey’ is a powerful collection. It contains the sadness of loss but is also full of hope. This review has only given a glimpse into Lynn’s world. There is so much more which could be included and I would recommend seeking the collection out in order to discover the full beauty of all of its poems.

Life’s Stink and Honey, by Lynn Valentine, is available from Cinnamon Press.

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 wild chamomile by Elisabeth Kelly

‘wild chamomile’ is a collection of poetry and prose, recalling a childhood. The only difference between the two forms are their length and layout. Elisabeth’s prose is just as poetic as her poems, and both are equally satisfying to read.

Set on a Cumbrian farm, the atmosphere is somber.  A gate is old and stiff, wood rots, a broken window spreads damp across the wallpaper, stone walls sweat, light is heavy and flat, the sky colder and darker, even a bus ride is memorable for the wetness on the glass, the rubber seal pealing way under curious fingers. Cheeks have darkness flowing down them, wellies leave harsh red lines on skin, heat is a suffocating mulch, summer is oppressive, flies seek out sweat, broken bottles, used to cut berries, are abandoned on the ground while maggots are stamped on for fun.

Statistically, farms are dangerous places full of potential hazards, while the instinctive reaction of livestock cannot be anticipated. They also represent gendered spaces where family are often expected to help out with seasonal chores, feed orphaned lambs through the night, supply food for hungry workers. Often away from urban sprawls, farms become tiny nations with their own culture and customs where solitary children can become islands, separated from the adult world.

This collection offers scant relief from the heaviness of remembrance. The subject matter has a hard edge, creating images to stay with you. Yet sometimes what isn’t said has the most effect. When it comes to other people, details are scarce. We don’t know who Elisabeth played hide and seek with, but we feel a sense of unease:

After tea we sit,
knees touching in that space
between your bed and the wall
while the summer storm unfolds.

Returning to visit the farm kittens is with someone who could be anyone. All we are told is:

Next time,
a week later,
you come with your
mouth in that I am two
years older than you.

Is it a sister or brother, or the one with a sneer who moved away without saying goodbye?  The reader is told little explicit about the family, but there are hints in the reference to a telephone call and raised voices, a car door slamming on Sunday afternoons, the traditional time for visits from absent parents. This lack of identity creates a suggestion of menace, while also encouraging the reader to turn the pages.

Who said: “If you poke your belly button your legs will fall off”. Who flew a favourite teddy bear out of the window and into the mud?

Who tells the child the bull is ‘calm really’ with a laugh, leading to the line which will resonate with anyone who has experienced how unequal relationships always involve “the dismissal of absolute power”, and “belittling of dominance” and how the knowledge of this will stay with you always.

Throughout the poems and prose there comes the sense of a little girl who doesn’t quite know how to fit into the world. Trips into town show that different lives exist because there were women who had “left the mud and ice behind”. The pineapple smell of crushed wild chamomile is a reminder of “long days always alone”. We’re told the narrator always “wanted to do the right thing” and there are references to trying not to make a sound, and caving in on yourself.

Any reader who experiences isolation would identify with these phrases. It’s about the need to protect yourself, to switch off feelings, to shut yourself down, and is often worse for girls, who’ve been bought up to do what other people expect. It’s too easy to then think everything wrong is your fault.

Research suggests children often blame themselves for problems at home. They think if only they were good and well behaved then nothing bad will happen.

Those living in rural settings, far removed from the local town, school and social events, are also at risk of learning a skewed view of the world. Somehow others seem have it better even though, if truth be told, there are too many who exist with difficult memories of childhood.

‘wild chamomile’ does not reveal many idyllic recollections, which helps make it a unique memoir. Farm kittens are genetically and scarily deformed through inbreeding. There’s guilt at the loss of baby rabbits and the death of a favourite horse. Maybe because of the darkness, the images of colour stuck in my mind; egg on white bread, red ankle strap shoes and red strawberries on the wall paper, a pair of favourite blue shorts with sailor buttons.

Memories are complex and rarely neutral. They can have layers of meaning which shift and blend so sometimes we forget if we remember truths or if they are desire made manifest. I found myself grasping at the splashes of colour and hoping some memories exist for the narrator which bring joy.

It takes skill, and I think a considerable amount of bravery, to recall difficult but indelible times in ways which are so compelling and striking. combined with a challenge to dominant media conceptions of rural life as representative of an idyllic existence.

For me ‘wild chamomile’ is a courageous collection. What happens in our early years can cause scars which are never quite healed but releasing these experiences into the public domain reminds readers it is possible to survive and turn negatives into strengths. The poetry is fluid and runs freely through the paragraphs of prose as much as it does the more traditionally laid out poems. This is an impressive collection to look out for; one which is both reassuring as much as it is powerful.

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Elisabeth Kelly is a writer and poet living in the Scottish Borders, Scotland.

Elisabeth can be found on Twitter as @eekelly22 and has a website at https://elisabethkelly.com/ 

 

 

 

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Postcards from Ragnarok by Katy Naylor

Being a lover of myth and legend, I was delighted to read Postcards from Ragnarok by Katy Naylor. Reviewing a collection is a good opportunity to live with a set of poems for a while, revisiting at different times of day and night, while using the internet to create a fully transmedia experience. I knew a little about Norse legends but not that Thor rode a chariot pulled by goats or the sea monster called the Kraken was so ancient!

I like poetry which introduces me to new information but Katy does more than this. Postcards from Ragnarok not only retells Norse stories, the poems seamlessly merge past with present, and in doing so, the relevance of myth is reinforced. The stories tell us how different civilisations made sense of the inexplicable vagaries of the natural world, but are also a reminder of how emotions have changed very little over the years.

Retelling myth often involves dealing with a mass of material, much of it conflicting. Katy shows great skill in skimming off the bones, giving the reader just enough to build a narrative in poetic form. It’s a small collection but each poem is a gem.

We’re introduced to Baldr, ‘the most beloved of the gods‘, who foretold his own death, causing his mother Freyja to call on ‘each creature, plant and rock, to swear an oath to protect him‘. Only the mistletoe refrained. Trickster god Loki persuaded blind Hothr, Baldr’s brother, to kill him with a mistletoe arrow.  Everything in the land was asked to weep to save Baldr but Loki refused.  We’re not told why. Instead, the poem appeals to the reader to put themselves in his place. ‘We too know the power….The wound opens, our words turn to ash and still we will not weep‘.

Guthrun offers the story of a woman seeking revenge for the murder of her brothers. She achieves this by setting alight the great hall and we’re asked to imagine nursing such pain…that you’d gladly turn on your own future, toss the brand that sets your roof alight’. The next stanza opens with ‘Monday, 7;59am, leaves blow across the platform, the air is bitter, my coffee’s growing cold…one step forward,’ before we’re told ‘Listen, you can hear it coming, you can already smell the smoke.’  The transition between worlds, in just 21 lines, is stunning.

Katy is also skilled in showing rather than telling.  The poem Sleipnir includes Loki again. He has turned himself into a mare to mate with the stallion Svaðilfari. Sleipnir is their eight-legged offspring, with the power of flight and ability to travel between the worlds.  We understand this power because the poem takes us to the shoreline where Katy writes:

….I will imagine that I am no longer confined by sea or shore or earth or sky or smoke or father or mother

I will feel my eight hooves thundering through the sand and the salt and the spray and the clouds in my name

I will know the joyful passage from sphere to sphere and back again….

To go to hell and know I was just passing through.  

Postcards from Ragnarok contains so many people, creatures, places and emotions, yet never feels too much.  As well as Baldr, Freyja, Hothr, Loki, and Guthrun, there’s Fenrir the wolf, the Kraken sea monster and Yggdrasil, the sacred tree central to all Norse stories.  Locations include Midgard, or Middle earth when humans dwell; the Nastrands or shore of corpses; Idavoli, home of the gods and Ragnarok itself, which represents the great battle at the end of the world. The poems are also full of emotion. Thor is a beautiful love poem, each stanza beginning with the line For you I would, joyfully… before concluding – once again – with the unexpected:

For you I would, joyfully
wrestle the serpent
that circles the earth 

though you and I both know it will destroy me.

I think Fenrir is one of my favourite poems in the collection, alongside Guthrun and Sleipnir, although I loved them all!

Fenrir’s first stanza introduces the chained wolf, destined to swallow the sun, but having to break free in order to achieve this. The second stanza contains the segue to the present, with an image which has haunted me since I first read it.

It’s like sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool.
Light and sound distant and distorted.

My lungs scream for air and I long to break for the surface.

I think about the weight of water. I am heavy as a lead idol,
when it should be the easiest thing in the world to float. 

Here’s the equivalent of Fenrir, trapped in chains, knowing they can be broken but he is helpless. The poem closes with a reference to winter shadows spreading across a kitchen and living room floor, being unable to take the action needed to light a match and lift the gloom, while the final line perfectly links the end back to the beginning; ‘Outside my window I can hear breathing and the soft scrape of metal, link on link.’ 

I was sorry to come to the end of the collection and would have happily read another ten or twenty similar style poems. It wasn’t just the insight into Norse mythology which I loved, it was the merging of then and now, and the reinforcement of how ancient themes are still relevant today.

Science has changed our knowledge of the world. We no longer need to create stories to explain nature or understand death, but we’re surrounded by books, films, drama and poetry which seeks to capture something of the universal.

Revenge will come back on you.

Destruction can be tempting.

Nothing really ends, it only changes its form.

Grief is painful but love is what matters.

For me, these poems tell of a world similar to our own. We’re still telling the same stories today. They might appear different on the surface but underneath they’re driven by the same emotions and desires. In Postcards from Ragnarok, Katy Naylor offers us a timely reminder of what it means, and how it feels, to be human.

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Postcards from Ragnarok is published by Alien Buddha Press and is available through their website as well as from this link on Amazon.

Katy is the EIC of a new interactive arts zine @_voidspace_zine, and can also be found on Twitter as @voidskrawl.

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How to be a Dressing Gown by Charlotte Oliver

How To Be A Dressing Gown contains an eclectic range of work. Each poem is a gem because Charlotte Oliver has a keen eye for observing the world around her, and the results are both humorous and insightful.

The collection begins with Charlotte locating herself in a world where people are afraid of words (My People),. In this environment, wages and care for others take priority over an artistic soul (Yorkshire Puddings) and the discovery that expressing emotions on paper is a revelation (Her Secret).

…she whispered her deepest feelings 
into the void 
and the peaks and troughs formed outside of her 
and she saw that 
they could be beautiful. 

Family also appear in these early poems. Mum Gets Ready describes untying her housewife self, and hangs her on the back of the kitchen door ready for the morning. The young Charlotte watches as her mother gets ready for a night out, my film star at her dressing table – the red-lined jewellery box dribbles out her pearls. There’s the click of the curling tongs, hiss of hairspray and high heels which puncture the path outside my window as she leaves. The poem is full of visual images, as is Song Of My Granny, who comes to life on the page with her lipsticked giggle and painted nails.

Oh granny, creator of lemon meringue pies, 
who cocked a snook at age – smoked at 9, ears pierced at 70, 
a job at 75 playing music for the ‘poor inmates’ 
in the old folks home. 

Charlotte sees poetry in everyday objects and the title poem, How To Be A Dressing Gown, offers a great example of her talent. Here something recognisable is made special. The role of the dressing gown is that of a hug, and a valuable source of warmth. It has the power of an unexpected sponge pudding with custard. Who wouldn’t rethink their relationship with their dressing gown after reading these lines!

Other day-to-day objects also become poems through Charlotte’s precise observations. It Could Be Anybody’s refers to the odd sock phenomena we’re all familiar with. This one is covered in dust from underneath the bed but when stretched out it reveals a rainbow, chosen because of a love of bright colours. Being Charlotte’s view of a sock, it’s also much more than an item of clothing as it represents the wearer with solid feet that keep us anchored…that cycle to work to save the world.

In Self-Portrait As A Tablecloth, embroidered flowers represent the previous generations who made and owned it, while Shopping List Bird offers a magical world where scraps of paper, receipts, torn notes and sheets lined deep in poems, all turn into birds at night, their countless wings unfolded to and fro as they soared up high towards the setting daytime. 

Part of the appeal of this collection is its blend of styles and subjects. You’re can never be sure what will come next. Not only do the portrait and background poems contain lines of great depth and universal meaning, Charlotte isn’t afraid to leave behind the relative safety of humour. I suspect poems such as Nothing Happens But Everything Happens come from a deeper place. The sudden absence of humour in this poem, first encountered in Her Secret. comes into its own with lines such as these;

Like the silence when you ask if everything’s ok
and the words in their throat crumple up
like a paper straw sucked too hard
and you can’t straighten it out for them

For me, this and the following poem, Appointment, demonstrate Charlotte’s poetic skill on a different level. Appointment describes a hospital visit, and the struggles experienced when White coasted language, sugar-free, muffles my understanding where, after the examination, the narrator returns to the waiting room;

breathless, desperate to escape
the searing light that sees
bones and tissue, but not sadness. 

These are accessible poems, with powerful images, making it a collection I’d recommend to anyone new to poetry as well as for more experienced poets. Charlotte offers her unique view of the world, often with lines which stay with you long after reading. In My Averageness the narrator describes herself as a brown crumb of Christmas pudding in a pile of shiny coins while being no prize specimen…but necessary so others can shine brighter, while the final poem, We Can Just Be imagines leaving behind the day-to-day world where the language of schedules and plans does not exist…leaving only this moment   this moment   this moment. 

Poetry exists in the moment of reading and Charlotte’s poems use words to create worlds which are both personal and universal. Blending the two takes talent and this collection shows great skill in bringing these qualities together in ways which blend humour with deeper insight. The resulting poems capture moments of emotion, suggesting this is a poet to follow. I’m already looking forward to reading Charlotte’s next collection.

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How To Be A Dressing Gown is published by Dreich Chapbooks and Charlotte can be found on Twitter as @CharlotteOlivr (without an ‘e’).

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Learning from the Body by Sue Butler

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Traumatropic Heart by Susan Darlington

I love a new collection. The first encounter is always a privilege because you only get one chance to experience that initial read through. The anticipation, which comes from not knowing what lies ahead, is exciting. I’d already been drawn to the title of this new collection by Susan Darlington, where traumatropic refers to the modification of something, such as the root of a plant, as a result of wounding. Intrigued, I settled down to the title poem, unsure of what to expect, but suspecting I could be in for a treat. I was not disappointed.

Traumatropic Heart begins with an image of a felled oak tree with blackbirds nesting in its crook. So far, so ordinary, then I reached the second stanza.

I swallow them both ~
beak first
and they fly – resolute –
into the heavy chambers
of my traumatropic heart.

I felt in the presence of an imagination I could relate to. Here was something special. The depth and breadth of these poems was fascinating, while the mix of otherworldly subjects, alongside day-to-day reality, ensured going out for a walk would never be quite the same again. From now on, I’ll be seeing the natural world in a different way.

Nature has generative cycles, where everything has a purpose, even when abandoned. Antlers in ‘Dry Velvet’ are discarded by the stag in a process of growth and development. But even though they’re no longer of use to the creature, they still have a function. What we leave behind can be used by others and transformations like these reflect one of the themes running through the collection.

‘After the storm has passed‘ is full of mystery such as the stranded whale which ‘heaved itself up and into the waves’. I loved the descriptions of sea glass, worn by the tides, the water both polishing and staining its surface and blurring the edges. It made me think of life and how it can batter us at times, still retaining its beauty but continually reshaping it.

I thought ‘It’s said’ was a perfect poem. It introduces the acorn as having a soul, the heart cracking and ‘breaking for those it left behind while its roots are searching for friends who are already on the other side. The poem contains a delicate transition to the personal in the lines I look at the acorns scattered – under the oak tree- and wonder which one is you’. I don’t think there are many people who’d be unable to connect with this.

‘Autumn’ has a stunning first line; ‘Fox carries autumn on her back‘ and later, she pulls the harvest moon into her eyes. It’s an example of the magic and mystery which flows through the collection, sometimes gorgeous but at other times, more malign. The poem ‘Owl’ is positioned across to the first of several line sketches which I thought beautifully enhanced the collection. Owl is sinister; ‘she can take away your fear if you name the right price’ suggesting an otherworldly power, one which needs to be encountered with care, as the final stanza warns the reader.

She opens her other eye, turns her head,
and fixes you with a tunnel black stare
that freezes you with a fear great enough
to take away all you’ve previously known.

It begs the question, what would we give to lose fear, but what is the price of feeling good again?

The sense of something more powerful, and not always benevolent, is another theme. In ‘Magpie eggs (two for joy)‘ the narrator rears the chicklings until they are two weeks old. The strongest pair are then removed and drowned with ‘the rest of the brood within their sight.’  ‘Demolition‘ also speaks of destruction, as does ‘The Trapeze artists’ where one can ‘feel his fingers start to loosen from my grip’, and the ‘Snow Angels’ which are destined to melt ‘over the roots of skeleton trees and into the sea.’

Susan does not shy away from difficult subjects. ‘Hope‘, introduces the theme of the dead or unborn child. who appears again in ‘Ladybird winter‘, ‘Skimming stones‘, and ‘Stone babies‘. Like learning about the word traumatropic, I needed to do some background reading. ‘Stone Babies’ is the name given to a calcified foetus, which can remain undetected for decades. The thought of carrying multiple stone babies without knowing stayed with me long after the first read. I was haunted by lines in this poem such as ‘in one another they have the only company they’ll ever need‘ and ‘they make an unspoken pact – never to be born’.

The sense of difficult loss reaches off the page many times. In ‘Skimming Stones‘, not only has the narrator purposely ‘twisted a leg off the water boatman’ and squeezed the insect ‘between thumb and finger until blood ran’, there is also the creepy presence of the lost village below the reservoir, where the eighth chime of the underwater church bell tower ‘drowned our child’s laughter’.

it’s always hard to pick out favourites, especially from a collection where every poem contains memorable lines, but standout poems for me were ‘Dolls house‘ with its vivid depiction of anger, and the closing poem ‘Translate the notes‘ which has more wonderful images of transformation;

And then one day
I didn’t even need the piano,

I swept its ivory keys
into the concert of my skin

and laid them in the caesura
between my vertebrae.

If I had to pick out one poem, I’d be torn between ‘Vanilla’ with its tender portrayal of love, and ‘Silver Birch‘ which speaks to the reader about a dryad, or tree spirit. The poem suggests an ambivalent relationship between the spirit and its host. There are hints of cruelty where ‘the cuffs of silver birch bind her wrists’ with ‘splinters of bark scratching flesh. She has the very human ability to feel pain and restriction where ‘The vertical of her body is broken‘ and ‘twigs that were lashed in the gale – have ripped and caught in her tights’. As ‘Vanilla’ was full of soft-sounding words, the first stanzas of Silver Birch are more harsh. ‘Bird song is stifled’ and the ground is parched before a roe deer appears, unheard. There is a powerful  visual effect in these lines where the deer

‘scratches its neck against her hipbone
and lazily nibbles at the ferns
that have germinated across her skirt.

This is followed by the effect of its breath. It turns her blood to sap and the dryad begins to photosynthesize, a biological process for creating energy. She becomes even more evanescent until finally disappearing altogether.

This image of dissipation stuck with me. It’s not hard to believe trees have a unique essence of their own, beyond rational understanding. Although recent research suggests trees are capable of communication, the existence of dryads remains a pagan tradition, but one I don’t find hard to have sympathy for. Trees are special. A walk in the woods or forest can be both settling and uplifting and something about this poem resonated on a deeper level. The relationship between carbon dioxide and oxygen is essential for life, and the meeting between the physical deer and immaterial dryad, creates change. Already spirit, she evolves into the air we breathe.

It’s not dissimilar to the loss of loved ones where our memories from the times we knew them remain. For me, the poem touches on the universal experience of life and death. It made me want to lean up against a tree and in doing so, feel a different lifeform, one we don’t fully understand but is integral to our existence. Any lack of scientific knowledge creates a space for poets and other artists to fill, and I thought this poem achieved that beautifully.

Traumatropic Heart captured me. Not only were the glossy pages a pleasure to touch and turn, each poem invited me on a new journey of discovery. I was sorry to reach the final page but delighted to find the debut collection by Susan Darlington, titled ‘Under the Devil’s Moon‘, which I immediately ordered. It’s another collection I’d highly recommend, but to say any more really needs a separate review!

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• Traumatropic Heart is published by Selcouth Station 
• Under the Devil’s Moon is published by Penniless Press
• Susan can be found on Twitter as @S_sanDarlington
• images from pixabay

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Hanging Fire by Louise Longson

Hanging Fire is a chapbook containing 16 beautifully crafted poems. To me, it feels like a collection of pagan poems which speak of life-mysteries as much as day-to-day reality. Each one has the polished feel of careful editing where the removal of superfluous words leaves clean, visual images. Some of these jump off the page while others are more still and quiet. Only poetry can summon such a broad range of emotional responses, and Louise crafts this effect with great skill.

There’s a mixture of styles and design. Traditional equal-length stanzas in Sunset at Samhain, which I read as an account of Persephone’s descent into the underworld, mingle with unbroken lines in The Star Paradox, an unpunctuated flow like a continual thread of an idea, or thought stream. The line ‘at the same time’, is repeated four times in its 17 lines. It should be too much but it isn’t. Instead, the refrain brings together the elements of the poem, where what we see today in the stars has already long since happened.

Star watching is the closest we can get to time travel. It’s like being in a museum where objects are still present, despite their owners being dead, often for millennia. On those rare occasions when you get to hold something of great antiquity, you can close your eyes and imagine the past in the same place as the present. Reading The Star Paradox gifts a true poetic mystery.

Evening: Overlooking Padstow Harbour is another poem without pauses. The reader finds themself alongside the narrator, looking out through ‘a picture window     our aquarium…’  where the boundary between earth and water is blurred through phrases like the ‘shoals of sightseers’  who are ‘swimming by’ with ‘bubbles pluming     rising    into the air…’

This blurring of worlds can also be found in the title poem Hanging Fire. Here the forest ‘Sometimes feels like an underwater world…’ where trees are ‘barnacled with lichen‘, on a ‘coral reef of leaves and pine needles‘, alongside the wonderful image of tidal light ‘ebbing and flowing with the wind‘. Even the quiet is described in watery terms as ‘ a submerged hush.’ The final lines of this poem refer to the Hanging Fire sculpture by Cornelia Parker.

It seems as old as the forest; an ancient rusting
fire, a flame that perpetually burns.

The flames are symbolic images of perpetual fire, hanging from the trees in a circle, as if fragments of the sun have fallen and been captured in cast iron.

Something I love is when poetry introduces me to something new. Thanks to the internet, I willingly fall down rabbit holes full of associations. With Louise’s collection, it was the title poem Hanging Fire which led me to the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail by Cornelia Parker and others, before the rabbit hole extended off into different directions.

The trail looks wonderful and it’s a shame it’s so far away from the northern town where I live. Cornelia Parker has several sculptures there, including one of leaves positioned like fungi on the bark of a tree. With this in mind, re-reading Louise’s collection made me think about sculptures as poems.

Poems can raise visual images in your mind. The moon poems Selene and Moonbathing made me think of the silver light of a full moon, rising over fields and woods in the distance. Visual art triggers specific words and phrases. It’s a two-way relationship and, thanks to Louise, I’m now wondering about this further.

An example of sculpture as poetry is Strandbeest, a kinetic structure by Theo Jansen. Strandbeest is a giant object with moving parts which is propelled by the wind down a beach. The giant skeleton, constructed from plastic tubing, moves with incredible grace. It’s also a little disturbing, almost the stuff of nightmares, like a poem can touch home in ways you might not have chosen to experience.

One such poem in Hanging Fire was A Ritual to Escape Madness at Nightfall. The opening line ‘When the moon rises, I must gather my wits‘ set me up to expect a sabbat, or some other ritual ceremony, maybe in the woods at night. I didn’t expect what followed. It’s an example of a poem containing the unexpected. Its final lines ‘This is the last time, the last time, the last…‘  shares the universal cry of the addict who knows they must stop, but only has the power to think this when in the grasp of a fix.

It’s always hard to select a favourite poem from a collection but Theia ticked all the boxes. I like poems that take on the voice of inanimate objects and I loved the imagery of the collision between the earth and Theia, an impact where tons of molten material hit the earth’s atmosphere, before congealing to create the moon in ‘a first, only, kiss…’ As if this were not enough, I was unfamiliar with the story of Theia, so learned something new. For me, it contained all the elements of perfection.

Outside of Hanging Fire, Louise has written other poems including this one, published by One Hand Clapping.

St. Michael’s Churchyard (Autumn)

Even on the calmest evening,
when the trees stand mute
and the leaves of ivy-covered
graves are motionless,
nothing is still. 

White winter pansies shake
their neurasthenic heads on
slender stalks and I remember
your hospital gown; the thinness
of your limbs; your breath’s last rush.

Sounds carry, even in
this airless space – voices
of lives that are not our own
insist on being heard. 

Rooks congregate;
a radio blares. Each evening
there’s another final harvest.

Other poems by Louise include Chiromancer in The Poetry Shed and Working Late in The Ekphrastic Review. Further examples can be found on Twitter where Louise tweets as @LouisePoetical.

Hanging Fire is Louise’s first collection. It’s full of magic, mystery and the promise of more to come. I’m looking forward to seeing what follows next year and would recommend Louise as a poet to watch out for in the future.

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• Hanging Fire by Louise Longson is published by Dreich
• Louise tweets as Louise Poetical https://twitter.com/LouisePoetical
• images without captions in this post are all copyright free from pixabay

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A Glimmer of Stars by Lynn Valentine

Each of the sixteen poems in A Glimmer o Stars by Lynn Valentine, has been published in Lynn’s Angus Scots as well as English. On my first reading of this lovely new pamphlet, I covered up the English so I could experience the Scots.

There were places where I wasn’t sure of the meaning, but found speaking them out loud offered useful clues, like haun haudin for ‘hand holding’, efternuin for ‘afternoon’, and I sik yir for ‘I seek your’. I’m so glad Hedgehog Poetry Press did this.

Sometimes, text on the page can reveal less than the voice does and I’m now thinking how lovely it would be to listen to these poems while ‘haudin the buik in your haun‘ at the same time!

A Glimmer o Stars contains poems of great tenderness. Set in Scotland with ‘the smell of smoked fish that still makes my veggie mouth water’, and ‘the red of the cliffs bright at any time of year’ (The Language of Home), alongside the ‘small snow of lambs‘ and ‘daffodils drowning in hailstones’ with ‘sly winds starting low then taking over the whole length of sky‘ (A Lost Friend). 

There are poems about family and friends, they speak of love and loss, while being a testament to those no longer with us. The theme of remembrance runs through the book.  There’s the ‘boy in class, the one that could always make us laugh’ who now has their name ‘written on the harbour stone, I mark your passing every time I’m home‘ (A drowning). 

For the mother, the weather map on the tv represented the locations of her family, it ‘tethered and tied us to her coordinates, located her son in the centre of things, held my sisters’ summers in the same spot as hers’ (My Mother’s Complaint).

Meanwhile, the father ‘whistled as if the world was his alone’ before starting up the snowplough for ‘his careful handling of a snoozing town, as he cleared the roads‘ (My Father at 4 a.m.). These are lovely poems of remembrance where, as in so much Lynn’s work, the everyday mingles with the universal, as in Opening.

We are changed, marked by this year –
a furrow of losses ploughed into the soil –
the earth trembles, crows watch,
our hands raw from prayers.

Love and loss are huge themes but Lynn treats them with delicacy, finding meaning in small details and running a thread of subtle humour throughout.

As well as remembrance, these poems speak of ‘involuntary childlessness’ in ways so powerful they seemed to jump off the page. ‘My barren belly concaves in the wet afternoon, my waterproof the only second skin I’ll own‘ (Sheela Na Gig, Rodel). Visiting a rag well with ‘nervous giggles‘ speaks of places where hope and prayers are manifest in gifts to the earth. ‘We knotted our wishes round the well…white for a child, blue for a cure.’

The reader wants there to be a happy ending but the truth is more painful. ‘You away by midsummer, me and my belly empty‘ (Clootie Well).

Poetry has a way of giving voice to unspeakable things so they can be shared. Reading Lynn’s poems is like opening locked doors, and finding you’re not alone after all. This can be a great comfort, in particular when it comes to difficult subjects.

The title of the pamphlet comes from the poem Snow Blind, one of my favourites. The opening lines pull you in and carry you on to its sad, but beautiful, ending.

She can sense the emptying of the sky
though her sight’s nearly gone, her eyes
a glimmer o stars. This cold snap
came on quick and now everyone flies.
She can’t hear the housemartins
anymore, their small cheeps
above the fields. She listens to the geese
going north, their song of for snow, for snow.
By winter, if she’s spared, she’ll be
snow-blind, neither use more ornament
to anyone. She’ll choose a course,
~go travelling for snow or sun.

There’s so much to like and love in A Glimmer o Stars. Lynn’s poems are full of stunning images like the sparrows with cold children, where the poet saves loose dog hair, ‘pushing it into trees to warm their nests‘ (A lost friend).

The line ‘hope was measured in small things’ returns to the theme of memories, and how small objects can carry so much meaning. The line describing a street in Prague, filled with bundles of wool and shelves of tins, put me in mind of a collection of poems like this pamphlet, where each blank page is an opportunity for the poet to ‘…weave, shuttle and loom, knot gaps for other peoples dreams’ (Lacuna).

The image of weaving reminded me of ‘rhapsode‘, from where we get ‘rhapsody’. In Ancient Greece, the name was used for the performer of epic poetry such as Homer, and can be translated as ‘sewing songs together’.  Lynn takes the imagery of the loom one step further, by knotting gaps for other people’s dreams. I interpreted this as ‘resonance’.

We turn to poetry for different reasons; comfort, pleasure, recommendation, or simple curiosity. Sometimes, when a line resonates, it becomes part of the attraction. I liked ‘hands raw from prayers‘ (Opening). The words not only reinforce the passage of time, but speak of longing and desire, as evidenced in Pickers, where the womb of the earth quickens, birthing potatoes as children.

Pickers also offers examples of Lynn’s lovely, gentle rhymes, so subtle they risk being missed, especially when reading to yourself. I’d suggest reading them aloud to fully realise their cleverness and subtlety. These rhymes are as much about the sound a word leaves behind, or the shape of it in your mouth and on your tongue. It’s the best type of rhyming, as in ‘field and leave’, ‘work and earth’, and the repetition of ‘ing’ in the final stanza.

Readers are shown the power of language in these poems, not only to communicate but to physically mirror who we are. Language can both unite and separate, but I prefer to think of it as linking people together and Lynn is gifted at this.

It’s also clear that Lynn treasures language. The opening poem The Language of Home (after Roger Robinson), sets the tone of the pamphlet with its closing words I will take this gift and pass it on, write my words, sing my songs.

The closing poem All sunflowers turn, is another of my favourites. It describes Lynn packing the weather into a bag, with the intention of emptying it onto her mother’s bed, a gentle repetition of the weather theme introduced in My Mother’s Complaint.

Memory is fixed in the setting sun, which is always different, always beautiful. It represents the time of day when we’re reminded of the breadth and depth of a world bigger and greater than we are, and provides a beautiful image to end the pamphlet.

I will open your eyes to the reddening sky, 
turn your head westwards, stay for always.

What are poems after all, if not attempts to pin life onto the page for sharing, to be read in quiet places, or as windows to be looked through by strangers.

The best poems are like rags tied to the trees at Clootie Well, made and left behind for others.

Lynn’s poems are physical evidence of presence in a world of multiple voices. If you want to write poetry, but don’t know where to start, I’d suggest reading A Glimmer o Stars. The poems offer ways into poetry which are accessible and have meaning, while also demonstrating how the heart of a poem often lies in its unexpected twists and reminders of universal experience, something Lynn does so well. I loved these poems and am looking forward to reading more when Life’s Stink and Honey, Lynn’s first full collection, is published by Cinnamon Press in 2022.

A Glimmer o Stars is published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. The print version has sold out at Hedgehog, but the e-book is still available. Alternatively, a print version can be ordered via Lynn’s website lynnvalentine.com where you can read more about Lynn and her poetry. Finding a Voice Lynn Valentine is another page worth visiting, and lastly, to see and hear Lynn herself, watch The Aunties, a poem not from this collection but one which includes the line Life’s Stink and Honey, to be published next year by Cinnamon Press.

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When I think of my body as a horse by Wendy Pratt

Motherhood is a universal club women take for granted, until they find their entrance is barred. The poems in When I think of my Body as a Horse by Wendy Pratt are about the struggle to gain membership to this club. They are beautifully written poems, but not easy to read because they deal with the death of Wendy and her husband Chris’s daughter, Matilda. The collection is a testimony, not only of Matilda’s life but also the siblings who were conceived, then lost.

The book follows the journey Wendy and Chris made as they tried to start a family.  Like so many others, they had no idea what the future held. This is poignantly shown in the intimate Sleep (for Chris), which contains a terrible prescience in its final lines. A single star in the sky

can stare straight in at our nudity
our utter innocence.

With no indication of what lies ahead, we are innocent of future delights and tragedies. Instead, we live from day to day and in The Language of Pre-Motherhood, Wendy is unable to find the moment of change when the decision was made to become parents.

I don’t remember a discussion,
but there must have been one

there must have been a catalyst
the thinnest slice of the thinnest razor
splitting the moment

when we went from being two
to the imaginary three

Membership of the Motherhood Club guarantees common ground, one which offers affinity with strangers and provides topics of conversation which can be relied on. You gain automatic entry with the birth of your first child, while the months prior to birth are like standing in front of its open doors. looking inside. This is the time when baby shopping is validated, and you’re exposed to the vast range of products you had no idea existed. You think of your own mother and grandmother, and how it’s your turn to perpetuate the archetype of motherhood. Wendy describes this in the language of sainthood.

And I waited meekly for my turn 
as one by one the others were beatified 
rising up: a rapture of motherhood…

… Until there was no one left 
who spoke my language.

The language was infertility. Diagnosis tells the reader there are problems on both sides, with just two lines representing 60 individual months of hope and subsequent loss.

The five years we’ve been trying
to conceive: a waste of time.

I’m not entirely sure where Matilda first appears. It might be the thirteenth poem titled Embryo Transfer, where Wendy and Chris have to wait 14 days to know if an embryo has embedded.

                   In exactly fourteen days, 
the morning will arrive and you may 
be carted away; a mote of a dream 
on the razor edge slant of the morning’s light.
Until then let me keep you with me,
held fast with blood and imagination,
longing and love.

Two poems later, there is the wonderfully titled Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare, dedicated to the memory of M. If this is Matilda, these are the poems where she exists. Nesting is about shopping for ‘tiny baby bits’ and putting the Moses basket together.  My Favourite Memory describes feeling like a Russian doll with infinite babies inside, and the sensation of being kicked ‘down into my cervix, pushing up under my ribs’. The poems fill the reader with hope until Tachycardia tells us something has gone wrong. The title is the medical term for a heart rate over 100 beats per minute and this appears to be the point where the baby dies.

The aftermath is Air, a poem which refers to a funeral, white coffin, the tiny grave and contains the heartbreaking cry ‘Houdini Girl, how did you disappear?  Air is followed by The Circle of Sisters where Wendy describes the shift from expectant mother to becoming the woman who was different.

I became an embarrassment. I was no longer 
a sister of the circle, but my body 
couldn’t forget their dance, so I danced
in the shadow of my sisters, and shouted
my daughter’s story through the gaps. 

The drive to become a mother is primaeval. Women are biologically, socially and culturally guided towards parenthood from their earliest moments. Every month contains the possibility of pregnancy, too often followed by loss. In Warning, the reader is reminded how the painful process manifests itself. Like the single reference to five years of trying to conceive in Diagnosis, this poem ends with the painfully brief sharing of two further bereavements.

All the time I am warning others, 
My body has become a broken machine
sparking life then promptly distinguishing it. 

I warn myself not to get too happy, 
not to get too comfortable, or too complacent
with the tiny heartbeats in my womb. But I do, 
and death comes, twice more.

The theme of hares runs throughout the collection. They include the wonderful When Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare, Hare Enters the Bedroom, and The Hare Refuses to Speak. Hares are associated with rebirth, the coming of spring and new beginnings. In Hare we’re told,

My husband buys me hare-themed
gifts; we have hare cushions
and hare notebooks.

Hares are also icons for fertility and a symbol of hope, but in this collection, it’s the pattern of loss which continues. Sixth Birthday shows Matilda’s memory living on as Wendy imagines a day spent with Chris and their daughter at the seaside.

In Seven, Wendy visits Matilda’s grave and in Packing the Maternity Clothes Away, another step on the journey of acceptance is painfully taken.

How limp they all look 
how dispossessed, how empty.

It’s like I dropped them here,
when I heard she was leaving,
and returned seven years later. 

Eight revisits some of the time Wendy and Chris spent with Matilda.

I held you like a doll. 
I should have touched 
those still-wet curls, 
sucked those little fingers
kissed your foot soles 
while you were warm.

In Nine, the annual ritual is played out again, with this poem containing what, for me, is one of the saddest lines in the collection.

The pause where we 
wait to hear your first breath
has lasted nine years.

After a bereavement, common phrases are used by family, friends and strangers, such as time heals, you’ll get over it, you can always try again and so on. The truth is, time doesn’t heal and you don’t get over it. All you can do is learn to live with loss and it’s within the process of living where something eventually shifts. This is beautifully shown in Nine Years of Mourning.

There is a snap of umbilicus.
We slide apart. I step away.

Today I climb out of my skin;
my mourning dress. I am nude and white
as a stripped willow branch. I leave the dress behind,
stiff with the sweat of surviving.

The following title poem, When I Think of my Body as a Horse, speaks more about this acceptance.

I do not blame it for lost babies, 
it did its best. I do not blame 
myself for lost babies. I did my best.

I ride my body in a slow companionship.
Comforting it at the end of the day
and I say, Body, you are beautiful, 
you are beautiful, 

There is no language adequate to describe the loss of a child or children, and no social vocabulary for childlessness by circumstance rather than choice. Becoming a family is taken for granted and most couples are not taught how to live fulfilling lives on their own, or given advice for dealing with years of failed attempts to conceive.

In these 50 poems, Wendy has started the essential process of finding ways to speak about losing your babies. In doing so, she has created a collection which will resonate with anyone who has been through a similar situation, or knows somebody who has.

The book ends with hope of a different kind. At the end of the day, two people chose to make a life together, neither of them knowing what lay ahead. Eventually, the time arrives to draw a line under the failed attempts for a viable pregnancy. The decision is made to abandon the fertility clinics and rounds of IVF. The couple accept they are two, and not three or more. The people who met and fell in love continue to exist, and it’s recognising and cherishing this partnership that matters most of all.

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When I Think of My Body as a Horse, by Wendy Pratt, is the winner of the 2020 International Book & Pamphlet Competition judged by Imtiaz Dharker & Ian McMillan. The book can be purchased from the Poetry Society website here

When I Think of My Body as a Horse is Wendy’s third full collection. It follows Museum Pieces, published by Prolebooks and Gifts the Mole Gave Me published by Valley Press.

Wendy’s website, Wendy Pratt Writing, contains further details of publications and poetry courses.

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