Review by Colin Dardis of "Boy, Mother" by Caroline Bracken

Winner of the 2024 Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Prize, Boy, Mother is a sequence of poems exploring a mother’s relationship with her son, who has a long-term mental illness. However, this is not just the typical unconditional familial love of devotion and sacrifice. Rather, Bracken displays the interplay being the wellbeing of mother and son, as set up in the opening poem, "Amor Matris": "Some / children / are easy / to raise … // Some / mothers / are easy to love," going on to give the exceptions of herself and son. We see this uneasy symbiotic relationship throughout the work: "he gains ten pounds    you lose ten," "both he and you will be judged," "I carried him under my skin for 293 days safe in amniotic fluid." The mental wellbeing of one is wholly reliant on the other: the mother to know that the son is safe and well, and the son to have his mother fight on his behalf for access to care and the safety of home.

"Admissions" catches the interminable horror of hospital waiting rooms with wry observations: "greasy Hello magazines show Princess Diana alive … a half-full water cooler   no cups." We find similar trivialities in "Black Coat," where the mother frets over the suitability of a coat to be worn to her son’s possibly impending funeral. The mind goes to curious places in times of stress, but to hint at such whimsy in times of suffering without underplaying the suffering itself is remarkable writing, reminiscent of David Sedaris or Henry Rollins.

A number of poems are set in admission areas, anonymous waiting rooms, even police stations, Bracken expertly capturing both the clinical boredom of inactivity and the uneasy anticipation of bad news. Constantly, we are reminded of the mother’s helplessness, her sanity at the whim of a medical examination or a police search.

          A stranger will tell me
          he is either dead or found
          I have rehearsed both
          during six weeks
          of fluid dread
          ("Ballast")

Where these poems excel is that, although obviously written after the event, the reader feels right alongside the mother as she waits for the news, any news, sharing her concern and her fears. "Eyewitness" and "Mental Health Act" dissect and distil each action and thought slowly, drawing out the gamut of feelings and sensations, allowing space for the reader to enter the thought process.

Judge of the Poetry Business prize Jane Clarke, in her blurb for the collection, notes the collection's "innovative poems," although there is little that could be considered as breaking new poetical ground. Bracken prefers extra spacing between words or line breaks to do the work of commas and semi-colons; at times, punctuation is dispensed of altogether, causing a double-take in the reading of some lines that could have benefited from clearer intervals. To be generous, such form could be said to be representative of the frantic minds of both mother and son, where in the moment, thoughts and expressions are not precisely and neatly expressed, but tumble out in a cacophony of worry or illness. However, at times, the omission inhibits rather than elevates the writing.

The collection’s closing poems shift away from the turbulence and trials of disappearances and medical interventions to something more akin to normalcy: a shared coffee in a cafe, a trip to Marks and Spencers, the mother showing her son how to construct his hair into a man-bun. All of these little events are shown to be hard won, even fraught – "your leg shaking my hand shredding napkins," or the marvelling of the son successfully navigating a self-check out with ease by the overly-anxious mother – but come as blessed reprieve after the early tribulations.

Admittedly, this reviewer is not a parent, so outside of these poems, it would be hard to imagine the natural concerns and heartache that a mother or father may go through with a child. However, it is testament to the willingness of Bracken to be open and shame-free in sharing her concerns that Boy, Mother makes it a little easier for this reviewer to envisage such. Overall, this is another fine collection reflective of the usual high standard from the Poetry Business, and one to be sought out by all.

About the reviewer
Colin Dardis is the author of six poetry collections and four pamphlets, most recently with the lakes (above/ground press, 2023) and What We Look Like in the Future (Red Wolf Editions, 2023). A neurodivergent poet, editor and sound artist, Colin is co-host of the long-running open mic night, Purely Poetry, held in the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, and editor of the poetry blog, Poem Alone.

Review by Christine Hammond of "The Pretence of Understanding" by Beth Davies

When you read The Pretence of Understanding (The Poetry Business), it’s not hard to see why Beth Davies won the 2022 New Poet’s Prize. 

Her debut collection is a considered response to the realities of transition, exploring both the resultant rewards and losses. Her voice is clear and unambiguous. It re-visits childhood, acknowledging the immovable family roots that are woven in and uses them to help make sense of past and present experiences.  

There is a reflective tension throughout. A sense of belonging and valuing what matters competes with the inevitable change, autonomy and distraction that come with leaving home, university life and starting work, as seen in “A Plea for Future Winters”:

           … if one day, these Christmas card mornings cannot
           make me child again, throw a snowball 
           In my face. 

Davies dedicates this volume to her Grandparents and there are several poems that will resonate with anyone who has known the sorrow of dealing with elderly relatives and witnessing the slow decline. “The Garden at William Street” uses their overgrown garden as a metaphor:

          Later at the care home, you don’t notice 
         our scratched legs, dirty shoes, the tang
         of grass clippings. Your mind is too overgrown,
         your words behind thorns, my name
         a house you cannot reach. I hold your hand
         wishing I could tame that wilderness.

There may be retrospection in this collection, but there is no sense of over-sentimentality or sugar-coating. The poetry has its own motif of loss, decay, decline and death. This is often intelligently articulated using nature, notably through a lens of some of its not-so-cute inhabitants such as rats, crabs, insects, earthworms and (rotting) fish. The restrained, everyday portrayal of their visceral fates subtly serves to remind us on a metaphysical level of our own human experience.

About the reviewer
Christine Hammond began writing poetry while studying English at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her early poems were published in The Gown (QUB), The Female Line (NIWRM) and Women’s News where, as one of the original members she also wrote Arts Reviews and had work published in Spare Rib. She returned to writing again after a long absence and her poetry has been featured in a variety of anthologies including The Poet’s Place and Movement (Poetry in Motion – The Community Arts Partnership), The Sea (Rebel Poetry Ireland), all three editions of Washing Windows and Her Other Language (Arlen House) and she has also been a reader at Purely Poetry - Open Mic Night, Belfast.

Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of "Judder Men" by Ben Bransfield

It could be argued all poems reveal an obsession with time. The form itself demands something else of the writer: a sort of shorthand or sketching ability over the usual compulsion to provide readers with a full, intimate study of a particular setting, character or situation. Poems have to be compact, immediately engaging - the voice, everything. It is not that good verse does not require a great deal of time to craft, but even the heavily revised and redrafted can be read aloud in a few minutes, which makes them of the moment: of the present. Many of the poems in Bransfield’s collection deal with the power of the mind to recreate times past, as the author mines his own memories in search of people, settings, even crimes, and, in the process, this allows him to deliberate on how verse itself has the power to capture a memory, before it disappears or changes entirely. 

In fact, many of the poems in Judder Men can be likened to framed photographs, or portraits, that reveal intimate portraits of each subject. In the opener, 'Go Kart,' Bransfield writes ‘To go faster we had to share, to bolt together’ and one gets the impression the poet is talking as much about the shared experience of writer and reader, as he is describing the propulsion of a child’s go-kart. Likewise, in 'Uncle David,' 'Nan and Grandad’s,' 'Joe' and 'Elizabeth Crescent,' the reader is presented with everyday scenes that are immediately recognisable as those belonging to working-class life, the poet detailing the joy of incidental moments that make up much of lived experience: ‘Corned beef. Silverskin onion juice sluiced from the jar into mash,’ or family members crowding around a ‘mounted gas fire’ beneath a ‘galaxy of artex.’ As humorous as some of these portraits are, they are never nostalgic. In many ways, they act as warnings for us all to savour the simple pleasures that can be gained from being around other people, as if time itself was ‘wax [which] wept its way down our still burning candles.’ 

That said, Bransfield is equally at home exploring the borderland between the real and the imagined and these poems provide some of the collection’s standout moments. In 'The Twangers,' the poet re-visits a myth his father once told him, of menacing ‘judder men’ who live in the ‘tight brass coils’ on the backs of doors to stop them hitting walls. These nightmarish creatures are summoned by a ‘quivering call’ and emerge from ‘the fluid of the eye’ to torment the young boy. In poems like this, as well as many others across the collection, Bransfield’s eye favours the short, piercing image that conveys a specific moment or feeling – in this case peril, or dread. Elsewhere, 'A Rag Man' takes a single phrase and spins it out into its multiple forms, giving the whole poem a trance-like musicality, especially if read aloud: ‘it is vain: aim an’ spit / the man spears in a visit / ears in the van: a pain mist ears in the van: a stain map.’ By contrast, in 'Lamphrey' – one of several poems that seems to give more than a nod to the likes of Hughes and Heaney – Bransfield likens himself to the mysterious creature in order to reflect on the impotence of human experience: ‘it is not acceptable to sludge along the river’s bed / like a severed penis or an unfried length of black pudding,’ even daring himself to ‘deflate down the plug-hole / boneless, nothing more than muscle memory.’ It is this very ability to lose himself and us, between past and present, day and night, the everyday and the fantastical, that gives this whole collection its own peculiar beauty and makes Bransfield’s achievement both timely and timeless.  

About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is a doctoral researcher with Leicester University, following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing. His research interests include dystopian studies, children’s literature and initial teacher education. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of notable UK and international publications including Aesthetica, The Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature, Education in Practice (National Association of Writers in Education), Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine and Dyst: A Literary Journal. He lives and works in Cornwall.

Review by Rachel J. Fenton of "Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?" by Ian McMillan

With its searching title, Yes But What Is This? What Exactly?, Ian McMillan’s Smith and Doorstop pamphlet asks what a lot of Brits did, indeed a lot of us everywhere did, about Brexit, capturing the regional and international mindset from the kick-off (yes, there’s football among these 16 poems, more on that in a minute). 

One of the strongest Brexit poems, 'Between Junction 35a and Junction 36,' begins: 'The truck pulled up on the hard shoulder / and a curtain at the back opened theatrically,' exposing the racist pantomime put on by some pro-Brexit politicians who would have the media believe migrant workers and refugees were to blame for the government’s throwing the UK into financial ruin. 

Financial crashes have historically been linked to the government’s funding of its military interests, and McMillan hints at this 'A Financial Crisis in Three Parts,' with the line 'They smile before / they start the waterboarding.' 

But there’s much more to this collection than money and Tories. There’s a sense that McMillan goes more personal with these poems than usual. Yes, there’s his hallmark funny observations, but there’s some real evidence of a man reflecting not only on how he arrived at the present time, but where he wants to go; something of a referendum of the heart takes place in just twenty-five pages. 

McMillan’s known as a Barnsley poet, but his concerns here, while grounded on home turf (another football reference), speak of more global issues that enable him to demonstrate his emotional intelligence as well as his wit, which, when it comes to gender isn’t always as on point as his geo-political politics, but it’s a small point given the empathy shown in this collection. 

His empathy for a player subjected to racial abuse during one of McMillan’s beloved football games replays in four stanzas, as if slow-motion, the moments leading up to the attack, grounding them in the poet’s living room. McMillan’s skill in ‘Lighter’ is that he makes the reader feel the action is happening in their living room. The only disappointment of this collection is that just when you think it’s all over, sadly it is. You’ll wish there were more poems. 

About the reviewer
Rachel J Fenton is a writer from South Yorkshire now living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her poems have been published in English, The Rialto, Magma, and various anthologies, and her pamphlet Beerstorming with Charlotte Brontë in New York is forthcoming from Ethel Press in April 2021.