There are twenty-five short poems in this pamphlet; the longest is twenty-four lines. They are written in deceptively simple language - deceptive because, despite their accessibility, the poems, rooted in real people and the landscape around them, are profound and deeply moving. They reward the reader who pays close attention.
In the first poem, "Almost Home," a mother addresses her child:
spit and cabbage. When I made you,
I hadn’t finished making me. I am so rough
around the edges.
The shortest poem and one of my favourites (it is impossible to choose just one) is "In Balerin Village." The first two lines focus on a domestic appliance, "The fat-bellied range in my granny’s house" which "works hard / to warm us." But the description of the range is also suggestive of the character of its owner, "Get too close and it warns us with a scalding tongue."
The poetic skill here is subtle – the rhyming of warm and warn, the connection between scalding and scolding. There is humour too, "Pans hiss with home grown / and, once, a cockerel that had crowed too early for her liking." The reader can be in no doubt that this grandmother is a strong and energetic character, summarized in the fifth line of this short poem which stays with the domestic imagery, "Always the kettle whistles to her tune." But the poem is not confined to the kitchen and the grandmother cannot be contained within its lines, the final two of which expand horizons, speaking volumes about the tender relationship between the narrator and her grandmother and hinting at the stories in between: "Each morning she gives me an orange, / a small globe that feels like the world."
There are other stories. "Pillow Talk" charts the gradual disintegration of a couple’s relationship from "that first moment / of easy laughter, / pillow talk between kisses." There’s the woman who lives "on the Tenth Floor of the High Rise" who has "painted her room the colours of the sun." There’s "Mrs Ritchie" who "carries her anger in a handbag, / worn-out crocodile skin, used to have matching shoes."
The narrative voice remains consistent throughout the collection, compassionate, observant, respectful and with an Irish lilt. This is an exceptional debut pamphlet and I look forward to reading more from this talented poet.
About the reviewer
Julie Gardner is studying towards a PhD at Nottingham Trent University, focussing on Silence and Voice in the poetry of Vicki Feaver and her contemporaries. He poetry pamphlet Remembering was published by Five Leaves Publishers in 2024.
You can read a review of Remembering on Everybody's Reviewing here.