artemis - anne stewart
This is Allison McVety’s first collection. The first poem places us distinctly in a war era, or rather, a memory from it, following the narrator’s father through Yugoslavia and Greece carrying a thank-you letter from General Tito and a photograph of his mother. “Around her neck, in miniature, / her brother, on a row of cultured pearls: ... / ... He is his pre-gassed, // pre-shot self.” The narrator tells us she is the daughter of cousins, immediately moving us on into the realms of extended family where the book will take us, and that she is childless. The poem ends with the wish for a way to continue the line.
There is a formality to many of these poems (occasional hints of rhyme, measured stanzas), which emphasise their sombreness and give due weight to their emotional depth:
how she had cabled his sweater with staghorn,
seeded trellis, three braids, honeycomb –
all the same as his father’s but changed
the lover’s knot for a wishbone –
(Knitting Patterns)
There is also great tenderness: “life / running from you, quiet and warm” (The Two Times I Saw Your Penis); “it was this mix of women / padlocked to their kitchen lives who taught us / how to wait and what it meant to go” (Women at their Gates) and a stoic understanding of some of the harshness in these difficult lives: “Back again she checks his pockets / for the inch of chalk he used to spy, / ... / re-marks the soles of her shoes,” (Needle Work) and a confident poetic imagination: “You’ll... / pull off each finger, slot them beside your nylons” (Empty).
Not all of the book is devoted to family members. There are also poems documenting other aspects of war, “Sometimes, they’d ease the bodies / back across the canal / truncheon them over to Salford.” (Ship Canal); and on more up to date threats (road accidents, robbery with violence) and more casual relationships.
McVety has packed a great deal into these well-formed poems in a thoroughly rounded collection – well worth getting hold of...
Published in ARTEMISpoety