Portrait In Mustard, Wendy Allen (Seren, price: £6)

Poems of sex and sensuality pulse and burst into the imagination of the reader in this slim yet slick pamphlet from Seren, Portrait In Mustard. Daringly direct, Allen shows that poetry may be articulate, intelligent, erudite, thoughtful – all of the most highbrow aspects that verse is meant to embody – as well as delve into desire, the body, and what has traditionally been considered ‘base’. This includes not just lust and the body, but women’s lust and women’s bodies in particular.

But lust, with its urgent ‘uh’ sound, doesn’t do justice to these fine poems, that are more than just that, whilst also embracing it. So yes, there are pieces about intercourse, with imagery of peach dresses, cocktails, apricots and tulips. But the mind, heart, and soul are ever-present too, seeping through scenes, along with sharp, sardonic scenarios that throw a light on worlds such as art and medicine: “My period impressed me, so I contacted / the gallery to ask if they would display / my blood on their walls. The male curator / impressed me by saying yes.” Some influences in these pieces include Anaïs Nin, Jean Rhys, and Barbara Hepworth, and there is that same daring spirit (Nin), strength of observation (Rhys), and voluptuous, voluminous heft (Hepworth).

I read Poetry In Mustard across one train journey, and was transfixed, titillated, troubled, and intoxicated. This is a book full of daring truisms, and it is extremely scintillating stuff: I recommend it highly.

Fruits Of Labour, Betty Doyle (Seren, price: £6)

Infertility is the ‘palette cleanser’ for me in my reading of this next pamphlet, Fruits Of Labour, also from Seren. Moving away from Wendy Allen’s “uck of suck” are Doyle’s images of chalk and cobwebs, sparrow rib cages and empty cribs. In 25 Poems I Have Not Written About Infertility, she shares her own history, journey, and experiences, with imagination, creative flair, and courage.

At 14, Doyle was already feeling embarrassed and hiding her body – “changing for PE in which nobody / sees any of my mottled and wobbling, / hair-prickly flesh” – and experiencing horrifically heavy periods. Our hearts bleed as she bleeds, her words on the page a window through time (fringed with blood, hair, and tears) to her younger years, leading up to the tests and troubles, difficulties and diagnoses of later age.

There is incredible bravery in being so transparent and open, I feel. This little book acts as both a connector and a conversation-maker – it allows anyone who has experienced similar to feel less alone, and anyone who hasn’t to engage in the practice of empathy. Being a childless (or childfree, as I like to think) woman myself, I found much here of interest. In my case, I just never felt very maternal and didn’t desire the experience of having a child. But, other women’s childfree status may come from suffering or setbacks, not from choice. Doyle is direct in her explorations around this but also nuanced, taking difference into consideration whilst, at the same time, telling her tale. It’s extremely potent, powerful stuff as a result.

The Epic Of Cader Idris, Samatar Elmi (Bloomsbury Poetry, price: £9.99)

The poems in this collection, The Epic Cader Idris, speak profoundly, and with poise and precision, of the multiplicity of story; of the many narratives, myths, fables, and tales of the British Isles. They traverse time and space, and the I’s within them are numerous. Intertwined within the book’s overall makeup are those who have come from other shores, too, for this is an island of peoples; and the marginalised are, here, also naturally included and brought to the fore, their stories sitting alongside other figures such as Rumi, Nietzsche, Zeus – and Cader Idris, the mighty mountain of Wales, itself.

What I really like about this book is how Elmi makes a story out of any subject, not just epics – the everyday and the overlooked, the mundane in many ways, are also given precedence. In one poem, for example, a lowly mug is given a life, a voice, a point of view: “The thing with mugs is when they break / even by a hairline fracture, they are lost / to purpose”. Music, too, is of high importance throughout the book, which includes images of hymns, liturgies, dancing, breath, and even includes a playlist at the beginning for readers to listen to. 

But most interesting, to me, was the title poem The Epic Cader Idris itself: a long, meditative piece, divided into parts, that’s full of introspection, rumination, and socio-spiritual enquiry: “What is the soul if not a haunted place?” Altogether it’s a wide-angle, wide-ranging, and very deep piece within a collection that is the same. Wonderful.

The Shores Of Vaikus, Philip Gross (Bloodaxe, price: £12)

I think you could take any hunk of rock, no matter how ordinary, and a good poet would be able to write it in at least 10 ways. A great poet could write a hundred. And an excellent poet – a poet of poets – an endless number. Philip Gross exists in this latter category.

Luckily, his latest book is filled with rocks, “a sowing of stones” and boulders. Thematically, Gross looks eastward, towards the home of his father in Estonia, to “A landscape with no mountains, with no border”. And, as well as boulders and ‘stonefields’, there are forests and lakes, mushrooms and marshes, voices just out of reach and stories that the poet, in this book, reaches towards…

At the centre of the collection, then, is a very different work to the ‘poems of place’ that sit either side of it. Here, a prose poem / poetic prose piece composed of many stanzas sits. It is entitled Evi And The Devil, and is a most captivating work, written in first person, in the voice of a female character who is something like a mix of child, forest creature, faerie, spirit, outcast, victim, and victor… It’s hard to say, really, but it’s in this not knowing that Gross really excels, drawing on mythologies, narratives, the everyday and the unusual across images that collude, collide, and which could not, normally, co-exist. Tarmac seems fairytale-esque, for example, at one point; “smoke seems to be trying to write its own name; someone holds, in their hands, a “frozen scream”. Extraordinary!

And, an extraordinary book, all told. “If the best / of silence could translate to taste / it tastes like this”; and, if the best of poetry could translate to a book, then here it is. Put it on your wish list and get it for your friends today. Just luminous.