A languid arc of female loving
The poems in this debut collection are filled with love and longing, delivered in a calm, wistful tone. It’s a romantic, gentle publication. The female body is always present, often wrapped in sensuous, languid language communicating tenderness and intimacy.
There’s also an arc in the degree to which love as a space between queer bodies is allowed to come to the fore, as if the whole is a journey of self-revelation or acceptance. In the opening poems, the queer references are oblique — sometimes literally shrouded.
In ‘Transliteration’, for example, the problems of using language to describe personal needs and identity are set out:
what if our fate
was written around the body
[…]
shroud suspended above the skin
[…]
so it would take the right person to unspool us
The reader encounters a range of female characters, each in a context of complex relationships. The figure of Eurydice in ‘Eurydice Waits’, for example, is serving others and doing what is expected of her, whereas the speaker in ‘Trompe-l’oeil’ is concerned with the central question of family and acceptance:
My mother’s cousin says my poetry
is man-hating I wonder why she cannot flip it and name it girl-
loving
In ‘Shadow Symphony’ (near the centre of the pamphlet), we have what appears to be the manifesto (with a small ‘m’) poem, and a clearer picture of a personal journey:
Before you, there were sharp lines
between light and dark — now there’s
mystery
smudges
greyscale
And a few lines later:
Breaking free of the prison of
me before you
After this poem, the references to queer love become stronger, or clearer. But never strident.
For me, the stand-out piece is ‘Two girls peeling apples.’ This is a tender vignette of intimacy and friendship. The atmosphere is relaxed and trusting, an image out of time, as the two girls drop apple-peel into a bucket as they work:
The first of the evening’s
moths welcome-dance against the porch light
and we craft something without words or hands.