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The Book of Mary, Nicola Slee, 2007, SPCK. £9.99  ISBN 978-0-2810581-2-9

 
Non-Christians may fight shy of this book, written by a theologian and published by a leading publisher of religious books. Don’t be put off. Slee explains that, brought up in low church Methodism, she was steered firmly away from Mary worship. Later, she realised that the whole phenomenon of Mariolatry represents a continuous historical focus on what the ideal woman should be. However mistaken past outcomes, this most studied biblical female – most studied woman, in fact – demands reinterpretation. The intense historical interest is a fulcrum for contemporary ideas.

So this is what Slee does: write a series of poems about womanhood, many linked to the outline of Mary’s life, but leaving the poet free to invent and interpret. This re-interpretation of history is a fruitful mode for poets and it is well worth studying the energetic variety of approach here. Sandwiched between the poems are prose pieces reflecting on aspects of Marian tradition but also on the effect on Slee of this subject, “tacit, shadowy, unexplored” but “creeping up on me”.
  
Some of the poems are designed to be used as prayers. However, the overall effect of Slee’s comprehensive approach is a long way from religiosity. Slee tears into her subject, taking all aspects from free reinterpretation of biblical incidents to the dafter products of the Marian souvenir industry, “Buy our Transparent Virgin Mary filled with Lourdes water ... Your Virgin Mary Fridge Magnet Set will transform / dreary domestic routine into a spiritual adventure”. Even in satirical poems, Slee sympathises with those who need these trappings.

How do these poems/prayers stand up as poetry? Many of the poems nearer to prayer form ‘borrow’ familiar liturgical patterning without adding significantly to this mode. Occasionally Slee discovers her lyric voice, “Our lady of the islands / the white sands of Barra / the watery wastes of Uist / the glistening lochs of Skye // Our lady of the rising cliffs / the gentle harbours / the heathery hills / the sheep-claimed beaches” (Our lady of the islands). 

The most striking poems here are those where questioning and re-thinking are uppermost. Alone of all her sex summarises all the barriers to understanding womanhood constructed from the Church Fathers to Freud. Mary Reading convinced me both as poem and meditation. Using the common representation of Mary with a book in her hand, the poem dwells on this precious image, “In praise of the book / in praise of her book” and ends, “she insists on silence / and light on the page ... she will cultivate her mind / she will cultivate her book // In time, she will write her own”.