Four intriguing pieces: review
Fragile Bodies by Victoria Bennett, 30pp
This Reckless Beauty by Rhiannon Hooson, 36pp
Green Dusk for Dreams by Ruth Snowden, 48pp
Internet Love Slut by Gill Hands 48pp. £5 each; Wild Women Press, c/o Flat 10, The Common, Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 1JH.
There is both a toughness and a delicacy about these complementary collections, beautifully bound by the new Wild Women Press. Victoria Bennett’s ‘Fragile Bodies’ has the most internal consistency; charting the progress of love, conception and loss with a classical brevity: Sappho-like fragments are interspersed with almost-too-raw narrative. Bennett’s voice is daring and intimate; spare rather than discursive. This works well, though I did relish the poems that were able to combine speculative imagery with personal revelation, such as the different qualities of silence explored in ‘The Shape of Things’. Evocation of Dionysus, Moses, Thor and the Fates in ‘Let it Come’ is too deity-heavy, though. The strength of this collection is rather in the quiet, honest intensity of its poetic presence.
Classical references proliferate in Rhiannon Hooson’s ‘This Reckless Beauty’, too; though her poetry is very much earthed in a sense of the primal, the chthonic. Allusions are fleshed out with a vivid savagery, as is her use of textual layout; lines are hot, thick, heavy with the meat of her thought and the explicit actions of desire: ‘your fist closing around my fingers/ in the red heat of the boar’s flesh’ (‘The Boar’). But Hooson can also structure and sequence well, as in ‘Melpomene’, and ‘Ecbatana’. There are certainly enough delves into the classical ‘myth kitty’ to seriously impress, but, though their subversion into the feminine is enjoyable, I wonder if they are entirely necessary. There is sufficient passion for these poems to hold their own, and stand tall without classical scaffolding.
‘Green Dusk for Dreams’ is satisfyingly structured: water, fire, earth and air form its four corners. It starts off rather rapturously but moves into experimentation and a welcome playfulness. Ruth Snowden’s voice is flexible and fun: she is, by turn, an Elizabethan banquet, a witch, a slug. She is also perceptive – I loved ‘Zen Master’, with its instinctively perfect cat – and a fine poet, too. ‘Thieves’ is breathtakingly good: vivid, unpretentious, universal. ‘The Enemy Within’ is much more poignant but equally searing. I do feel that Snowden’s strength lies in her astute observations, which offer original and unforced insight, rather than the more general ‘atmospheric’ poems such as ‘Those Endless Days’, ‘Lincolnshire May’. But a well-balanced collection here, and real potential for much more.
Finally, Gill Hands’ spicy ‘Internet Love Slut’ is a must-have complement to all of the above. Racy, rude, and good writing throughout; I enjoyed even the more clichéd pieces such as ‘Erotomania’ (‘Applications for the post of Idealised Love Object are now invited…’) and ‘Virus’ (the internet variety). The gear changes when Hands’ imagination veers off into strange fantasy (‘Mrs Tiggywinkle Gets Naked’) and sexual subversion (‘Strange Fruit’). And among the snappy titles and the 70s’ pop references, there are some quiet moments of timeless poignancy, made all the more appealing for their contextual rarity: ‘The Present’; ‘The Ice House’: ‘On the third day of silence/ we talk of love;/ not sure of the tense/ we are speaking in.’
‘Never Trust A Poet,’ Hands advises: ‘Our metaphor setting is too high’. But I really liked this collection with its turned-up volume. And felt rather privileged to have read these four volumes with their various poetic craft.
This Reckless Beauty by Rhiannon Hooson, 36pp
Green Dusk for Dreams by Ruth Snowden, 48pp
Internet Love Slut by Gill Hands 48pp. £5 each; Wild Women Press, c/o Flat 10, The Common, Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 1JH.
There is both a toughness and a delicacy about these complementary collections, beautifully bound by the new Wild Women Press. Victoria Bennett’s ‘Fragile Bodies’ has the most internal consistency; charting the progress of love, conception and loss with a classical brevity: Sappho-like fragments are interspersed with almost-too-raw narrative. Bennett’s voice is daring and intimate; spare rather than discursive. This works well, though I did relish the poems that were able to combine speculative imagery with personal revelation, such as the different qualities of silence explored in ‘The Shape of Things’. Evocation of Dionysus, Moses, Thor and the Fates in ‘Let it Come’ is too deity-heavy, though. The strength of this collection is rather in the quiet, honest intensity of its poetic presence.
Classical references proliferate in Rhiannon Hooson’s ‘This Reckless Beauty’, too; though her poetry is very much earthed in a sense of the primal, the chthonic. Allusions are fleshed out with a vivid savagery, as is her use of textual layout; lines are hot, thick, heavy with the meat of her thought and the explicit actions of desire: ‘your fist closing around my fingers/ in the red heat of the boar’s flesh’ (‘The Boar’). But Hooson can also structure and sequence well, as in ‘Melpomene’, and ‘Ecbatana’. There are certainly enough delves into the classical ‘myth kitty’ to seriously impress, but, though their subversion into the feminine is enjoyable, I wonder if they are entirely necessary. There is sufficient passion for these poems to hold their own, and stand tall without classical scaffolding.
‘Green Dusk for Dreams’ is satisfyingly structured: water, fire, earth and air form its four corners. It starts off rather rapturously but moves into experimentation and a welcome playfulness. Ruth Snowden’s voice is flexible and fun: she is, by turn, an Elizabethan banquet, a witch, a slug. She is also perceptive – I loved ‘Zen Master’, with its instinctively perfect cat – and a fine poet, too. ‘Thieves’ is breathtakingly good: vivid, unpretentious, universal. ‘The Enemy Within’ is much more poignant but equally searing. I do feel that Snowden’s strength lies in her astute observations, which offer original and unforced insight, rather than the more general ‘atmospheric’ poems such as ‘Those Endless Days’, ‘Lincolnshire May’. But a well-balanced collection here, and real potential for much more.
Finally, Gill Hands’ spicy ‘Internet Love Slut’ is a must-have complement to all of the above. Racy, rude, and good writing throughout; I enjoyed even the more clichéd pieces such as ‘Erotomania’ (‘Applications for the post of Idealised Love Object are now invited…’) and ‘Virus’ (the internet variety). The gear changes when Hands’ imagination veers off into strange fantasy (‘Mrs Tiggywinkle Gets Naked’) and sexual subversion (‘Strange Fruit’). And among the snappy titles and the 70s’ pop references, there are some quiet moments of timeless poignancy, made all the more appealing for their contextual rarity: ‘The Present’; ‘The Ice House’: ‘On the third day of silence/ we talk of love;/ not sure of the tense/ we are speaking in.’
‘Never Trust A Poet,’ Hands advises: ‘Our metaphor setting is too high’. But I really liked this collection with its turned-up volume. And felt rather privileged to have read these four volumes with their various poetic craft.
Page(s) 49-50
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