The title of this first collection of thirteen poems by Helen Hudspith is taken from The Tempest; the verse begins: Be not afeared…

The poet writes …mainly from my own direct, often traumatic experience… and her confessional voice is easily recognised with the opening poem, as Newly raw; word-bruised, touch torn… as the speaker herself, her …childhood berry-smeared across / purple violating fingers. From Palette, with its hint at unbalance, to the deceptive calm and humour of the poignant Taxi Ride to Nowhere: When my Grandma lost her mind, / she sucked up my Grandpa / in her Hoover Junior… these poems took me by the hand.

Whether the speaker is a seemingly dispassionate observer of the man who bought bananas as in Ready, with The bags untouched, exhaling, around his feet; a native of …a small purple dot… with an alien name in Blood Dirt: Your face is a mirror of my face… or the child who …scribbled ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘fuck’ in the Visitor’s Book… of a church in The Coir Matting, the poet creates and recreates truth and surprise from a peeled sensibility, dislocating experience and a delicate juggling of the language at her fingertips.

The 53rd Reason comes quietly towards the end of the collection, but is the pivot on which many of the other poems rest, although each is crafted to stand alone. The speaker has become a child again in the reliving of the memory; the layout of the words reflects her bewilderment, her hesitation in the telling, which is not actually telling at all but a delicately judged showing. There is real pain here and I’m not ashamed to say that it made me cry.

In A Sleepless Night: About birds and holding on. / Claws tight around / some moonshine branch, / blackblood eye closing… the speaker says:

I like to think of deepest night,
muffle-studded with tiny
dropping bodies,
pebbles down-wrapped.
Dusky snowflakes with
the last-second gift of up.

Even without that revealing first line we’d have recognised the poet’s identification with the imagined birds, her hope and belief in the miracle of that …last second gift of up. The poem ends:

Little wonder then,
the song for joy at morning.

Waiting Room begins and ends with thoughts of poetry; …poems that speak from the edge of just… yet between the first and last couplets the observations are so exact that by the time I’d reached the heartbreakingly beautiful conclusion: And what makes a poem ‘good’ seems as tender / as the breath between madness and sanity… those experiences were mine.

But confession and shadows, both concealed and revealed in surprising metaphors or deceptively simply put are not the whole story. A poem after Robert Frost is imbued with a sense of the timelessness of the Land of its title, and crystalline images pass the window in 6.56 to Gospel Oak. Love and the natural world can be found in Fragments, and …somewhere, scattered carelessly, a scent of / almonds. In spite of The 53rd Reason the poet is still able to write:

Through the doorway,
unfettered as childhood,
wanders joy…

Be not afeared… here are hope and resilience, understanding too. A tender and beautiful first collection.

Thank you, Nell. I intend to take tc's booklet with me next week while I am away for a few days. I shall print this off and read both avidly, savouring every word.
Thank you again for an excellent review.

joanie

Nell, yes, I echo that, a lovely review, and a gorgeous collection- I meant to keep mine til xmas had properly started but couldn't and am savouring it too.

Nell, Many thanks to you for such an understanding appreciation of my collection. I am thrilled that you got so much out of your reading, so much that was close to what I, as poet had intended to convey. I have printed your review and will keep it with my collection...and if there's ever a reprint I'll certainly add some of your thoughts to the cover!
Thanks again. A real privelige to be reviewed by you.
x
tc

Sounds like a fantastic collection - where are copies available from?

Hi Felix,

Well I guess if you want a copy, I'm the gal to see!
I have copies left, so just drop me a ww-mail with your details and I'll get one off to you. No charge - it wasn't a money making venture, just a way to get the work 'out there.'

Mind you - lots of the stuff in ''Voices'' has now been re-worked for my up and coming new 'proper' publication. But I don't know when that's coming out, or cost, or anything really (!) so please have Voices to be going along with.
x
tc
(Helen Hudspith)