Mab Jones swoops back to improve this merry month of May with five of the best (in her opinion) new poetry titles from independent publishers: debuts in the discipline, sophomore efforts and a posthumous collection by Kathryn Bevis.
girls etc, Rhian Elizabeth (Broken Sleep, price: £8.99)
If you like the clear, direct style of Charles Bukowski’s best poems and the lucid, line-break perfection of Margaret Atwood’s verse – both of which I adore – then you’ll love new poetry pamphlet girls etc by Rhian Elizabeth, her debut as a poet but encapsulating the same clear gaze that I enjoyed in her novel Six Pounds Eight Ounces.
There’s a similar mix of sorrow, sadness, and affirmation of life’s everyday joys here, underpinned by a deadpan, almost sardonic humour, that anchors the poems and keeps them real and wholly relatable. There’s no airy-fairy to be found here; rather, a bit of grit, awkward nostalgia, fierce self-reflectiveness, and true empathy throughout.
I remember Elizabeth one saying that she’d always wanted to be a poet, not a novelist, and this is a very assured first poetry publication (with a press for whom places are extremely competitive). However, the skill for story is imbued in this book, and there’s also a novelist’s knack for saying just enough – no more, no less – which gives the pieces balance, flow, and poise.
As a result, awkward topics are addressed with aplomb, and there’s a sense of surety even when exploring difficult or embarrassing incidents. This makes the poems wholly heartening, I feel, and altogether makes for a very affecting reading experience. A brilliant book and glittering gold debut all round, girls etc will have you laughing, wincing, crying, and sighing (in recognition, in wonder) in equal measure all day long.
Makeover, Laurie Bolger (The Emma Press, price: £7)
Lucid but languorous, and drenched in lush 80s/90s imagery, Makeover by Laurie Bolger – her second pamphlet – includes her poem Parkland Walk, which won first prize in the prestigious annual competition run by The Moth magazine. Saturated in detail, but with a light and accessible style, expect nans, sleepovers, and Sylvanian Families in a tender, tough, tenacious batch of lyrically inclined yet spaciously-wrought poems.
It’s the detail that makes Makeover so appealing; for me, they have the quality of a time capsule, bringing the past vividly to life, whilst exploring themes that are universal. If you’ve ever, as a child, pretended to give birth to a cushion, or spilt food down the back of a bed or sofa, or noted the sayings and actions of adults relating to staying safe and how we, as little girls and boys (and, in particular, little girls’ bodies), should ‘be’, then here’s a haven of vividly wrought recollection as quirky as it cosy, slightly disturbing sometimes but wholly familiar. Makeover is a richesse of reminiscence, essentially, with a supermarket can of squirty cream and sideways, overly-shiny cherry on top – I highly recommend you treat yourself to a scoop.
Birds Knit My Ribs Together, Phil Barnett (Arachne Press, price: £5-£9.99)
‘Birdbrain’ might be viewed as a complement by Birds Knit My Ribs Together‘s poet Phil Barnett, who defies the usual tendency of writers everywhere to project themselves onto nature, turning animals in particular into human emulations (anthropomorphism). Instead, animals – and birds in particular – affect Barnett the other way, with him even wondering “what if / I actually – am – a bird”; “what if / I’ve been calling to myself / all this time”.
Nature isn’t something that’s thingified into a type of mirror, here; rather, human and animal are linked, bound together, wing by arm in the same, single world, and Birds Knit My Ribs Together is a book that evokes a strong sense of underlying, essential unity. The poems themselves are simple things, but as birds are simple, with different colours, calls, songs, and flight patterns. I’d say these pieces tend away from the concrete, fittingly, and towards the aethereal, emotional, and imaginative.
This makes these poems very engaging, and Barnett has a playful way with words which adds a joyful element to proceedings. A wanderer, an observer, a nature lover, and also a photographer, Barnett sees the world in multiple ways, from multiple angles, but always crisply clear, with joy and even with a kind of praise, a bit like a wandering troubadour, and the result is a book that’s personal yet profound and deeply connected to a greater whole and the wider world. Birds Knit My Ribs Together is a brilliant, bird-y book from Arachne, then – a feather in their cap, if you will.
May Swim, Katie Donovan (Bloodaxe, price: £12)
From air to water, now, in Katie Donovan’s May Swim, which features seals, squids, swimming, and much liquid-linked imagery, as well as bees, trees, foxes, and other things of earth and air. However, the images, overall, are more watery throughout, from being “drenched in rain” to a vision of “curving wavelets / melting on the shore”, from a “hot water bottle” to a “full bucket / beneath the water butt”.
Water is never far away, though: like life, it’s changeable, inconsistent in its form, one moment warm and pleasant, the next so, so cold… Water/life, in one minute, “hurls a big wave”, in the next “froths like an eager dog”, and these extremes are encapsulated here. May Swim also holds the loss of the Katie Donovan’s mother as one of its subjects, so prepare for some evocative, even graphic, pieces on this theme, too: “the emergency lady / guides us, / as we take it in turn / to dissuade/ my mother’s heart / from quitting”.
Altogether, the dualities of living and dying, keeping afloat and becoming submerged, are beautifully and intelligently explored in this finely written, feeling-full book. May Swim is a submergence into the elements of the world and the elements that make up life and living, too; well-observed, personal, but also wide-angled in its range, it’s a fantastic collection of new poetry from Donovan.
The Butterfly House, Kathryn Bevis (Seren, price: £10.99)
To finish this May roundup of the best new poetry is The Butterfly House: a book by a poet who recently passed away and was much loved by many in the poetry community. I remember seeing Kathryn Bevis’ poem Translations Of Grief – included in this collection – on Twitter after it won the Wales Poetry Award; before that, I’d greatly enjoyed her pamphlet Flamingo, with many of its poems also in here. So, although I never met Bevis, this is very much a loss for poetry at large.
What I like most about The Butterfly House is its humour, imagination and tenderness, and how they mix to create poems that pack a powerful punch. Add to this a real flair for visuals and, in particular, for startlingly original similes and wonderful sustained metaphors, bringing Bevis’ scenes and stories, whether a recollection or a more fantastical telling, fully to life. This life and liveliness – playfulness, inventiveness – stand in defiance of some of the book’s topics, which include illness, loss, and death.
The final poem of Th Butterfly House, Flamingo, sees the Bevis imagining her own death and brilliant emergence into the afterworld: “Even as you cry, I’ll be stepping / from the bed, feeling plush, pink tulle tutuing / from my hips”. Like Phil Barnett, Bevis becomes a bird, rather than project herself onto them; but here, of course, that act is full of the ache of loss, even as she paints joyfulness. It’s powerful, heart-wrenching stuff. A genius of a poet, these poems will live on – please do read them as soon as you can.
If you would like to submit some new, published poetry for potential review in this column, contact Mab via her website (you can find social media links there) or get in touch via Buzz.
words MAB JONES