This is the second of four publications from Wild Women Press that I am reviewing for WriteWords. To find out more about their work, have a look at the recent WW interview, Wild Women Interview
or visit their website: http://www.wildwomenpress.com

Victoria Bennet is the founder of Wild Women Press, works as a poet, lecturer and creative writing ‘facilitator.’ She also palys a central role in the promotion of literature in Cumbria, where Wild Women is based.

Fragile Bodies is very different in tone and subject to ‘Green Dusk for Dreams, the first collection I looked at. It traces the progression of a doomed love affair and an unsuccessful pregnancy, conveying the longing and pain of both in everyday yet often very tender and evocative language. Throughout the elements, (sun, heat, rain, storm, darkness), are skilfully blended in an extended metaphor, illuminating feeling and fate.

Bennett begins the collection on an edge, a precipice,
“To do this
will change everything”

She leaves us in no doubt about the central, pivotal nature of what is about to happen, how it will alter everything, even the laws of nature,
“See? Already the clouds
are rolling backwards”,
(Poem 1)
And yet, despite the warning, there is never a doubt that she will take that step.

The second poem explains, in acutely sensual language, the nature of that moment,
“I am becoming body.
All these senses, tugging
to touch you, to wander
the blind territories of your skin”
(Eros)

This is the first of a several poems which attempt a very difficult thing - to communicate the all-consuming nature of an intense physical love. Bennet handles this sensitively and deftly. The poems are never coy, never hide from the overwhelming desire, the need, but are at the same time almost delicate. This is an experience which alters self and unites two people in the most complete way,
“fingers reach to find each other -
a butterfly’s whispering dance,
tips touching with curious tenderness.
My body sings in celebration of you”
(Amalfi, 3pm)

These poems take place very much in The Now, in the immediate, magnified moment that love brings. They are truly beautiful - aware, vital and sensual.
Thoughts of the future are superfluous when under this spell,
“Your syrup skin
against the midnight jasmine.
how my body screams for you”
(Poem 5)

“...all the touches you have given me
and all that you will never give.
It matters not”
(Amalfi, 3pm)

and,

“I want you real
....so I keep on watching,
remembering you into my skin”
(Migration)

In the swoon of love, the images are of sun, fire, blush. As reality clouds the lover’s paradise, this changes. There are storms to come, later poems speaking of rain, wind and darkness.
Just as the first poem marked a standing on the edge, ready to step off, so ‘Coniston, 6pm’, presents the pivotal moment between the sun and the storm.
Again, we are aware that from now all will be changed,
“The midsummer clock strikes
at both the height of life,
and the days slow descent
into darkness.”

There is also an awareness that such passion has to end, that it’s very nature is transient,
“I think of the last time we met,
of how your body opened to mine
like this flower.........
such raging extravagance
is not meant to last the summer”
(Lillium)

The second theme of the collection, the unfinished pregnancy, is initially introduced in ‘Poem 10’, which I think is one of the most poignant and evocative pieces in the collection.
At first is is as if the lover has simply been absorbed,
“You float in darkness, forming
tissue, memory, skin, bone”
But the poem then expands delightfully, acknowledging the woman as the “frame” inside which “a universe grows”, until joyously coming to the realisation that,
“I am the carrier of stars,
the closest I will ever reach to God”

Yet even amidst this all-powerful image, the woman realises her singularity, her vulnerability, and the poem ends,
“I have never felt so lonely.”

During the “monsoon” of the relationship, the pregnancy fails, and in a harrowing echo of Poem 10, the truth is revealed,
“There is nothing;
Only space
and water
and longing”
(Poem 16)

‘Rowan’ is an exquisite homage to the unborn child,
Sometimes I feel you;
a tug on my breast,
the hot damp of your fingertips
a frightened call in the night.
No - that last one is just me
crying out to find you.”

The rest of the collection deals with trying to come to terms with loss, both of the child and of the carefree, unfettered nature of the love affair. The unity and spontaneity are lost, “how I wish I could reach you”, (The Shape of Things), and the woman no longer knows herself, she is muted and caged. Contrast “I am becoming body” with,
“I pluck at my plume,
trying to taste
something of what I was.”
(Nightingale)

‘Let it Come’ is a stunning final plea for catharsis, calling forth the storm, the deluge, the cleansing power of water to evoke a sea change,
“There is nothing here I want to save but our love
and that has no need of our shelter. It will sink
or survive. ”
and
“when all has come to dust...
...I will be waiting,
cleansed by water, fire and earth,
ready to love.”

Fragile Bodies is a powerful yet very carefully handled collection. These are poems of real force and passion but surprisingly they remain gentle and subtle.

The story of one relationship is told, but it is a story with parallels in all such unions. Therefore, whilst the reader empathises with individual fates and particular experiences, there is also plenty to take away, to confirm and illuminate human experience in general. This is high quality writing about the universal, overpowering nature of love, and it leaves the reader with a message that is simple, yet at the same time profound:
“there is only the beauty of love
and what we choose to make of it.”
(Amalfi, 3pm)


(all quotes used with permission)