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As a glance at the acknowledgements makes clear, many of these poems were written as commissions, for residencies or projects, or in response to requests for poems on particular subjects; indeed the acks page includes a section of poems "published online, as part of activist and/or literary projects". Poems with a practical purpose, then, and the order of adjectives in "activist and/or literary" might suggest that "activist" is the more important to the writer.
So I started by picking out poems that hadn't been written for any of these reasons, on the assumption that these would tell me the most about the poet's own voice and preoccupations. In "Hitting the Road with Frida Kahlo", she conflates her own road accident with that of Kahlo. I must admit, it's a title that would normally make me groan, because Frida flaming Kahlo is, like bees, Alzheimers and childhood memories, a subject that crops up far too often in contemporary poems and is beginning to be an automatic turn-off. But this is an original, individual treatment that for once establishes a genuine, intrinsic connection between author and subject and justifies its use. It's also very vividly done:
The title poem updates the elegy form with wit and sharpness to the online age: it can't be an accident that the ending
is so painfully reminiscent of Chaucer's three young drunks setting out with their proud boast "we wol sleen this false traytour Deeth".
I really didn't need this poem's footnote on "Rip", nor the ones to "Mrs Bennet's Burden" and "Scent for a Suffragette". On the other hand I couldn't half have done with explanatory notes to "Baking Scones for Eminem" and "God is a DJ" (haven't quite got around to googling Marshall, Slim and Armin van Buuren yet). I suppose what this shows is the problem with footnotes: our readers have different areas of knowledge and ignorance and these are, more and more, generationally determined. One good reason, I think, to put them all together at the back, where readers can ignore or consult them as they wish.
The section "Poems of Pathology, Anatomy and Dealing with Death" contains some of my favourites in the collection: perhaps the subject matter sorts well with her other incarnation as a crime writer. "Keepers", juxtaposing the voices of two technicians from the nineteenth and 21st centuries whose job is to create mementos of the dead for the living, is artful and compelling (here the note was again useful for generational reasons, since I knew exactly what the Victorian mortuary photographer was up to but had never heard of a "doll re-borner"). The two poems of "Deathbed Writing Workshop", which could easily have been sentimental, are instead powerful (and the word "debridement" on which they centre is wonderful, a gift to a writer).
I'm not entirely so keen on some of the activist poems, because they strike me as too tailored to the cause. "The Sex Life of Slugs", written for an online "against rape" project, explains too much of the faintly comic process the slugs are up to, and its final lines
left me thinking: well yes, but they do get trodden on and salted rather a lot, so on the whole I'd still sooner be a female human. The few purely humorous poems aren't really my cup of tea either, though to be fair, "Phone Sex" sounds as if it's meant to have a tune attached, while "Lowering the Teaune" might do more for me if I had ever listened to "The Archers" (I sometimes seem to be the only person in the country who hasn't).
Mostly, though, this is a varied and entertaining collection. The medical poems, especially, are effective - it is no surprise that she has often been successful in the Hippocrates Awards.
So I started by picking out poems that hadn't been written for any of these reasons, on the assumption that these would tell me the most about the poet's own voice and preoccupations. In "Hitting the Road with Frida Kahlo", she conflates her own road accident with that of Kahlo. I must admit, it's a title that would normally make me groan, because Frida flaming Kahlo is, like bees, Alzheimers and childhood memories, a subject that crops up far too often in contemporary poems and is beginning to be an automatic turn-off. But this is an original, individual treatment that for once establishes a genuine, intrinsic connection between author and subject and justifies its use. It's also very vividly done:
I clamber out, broken bones grating,
Scrunching like brown sugar, fall down
To lie on the icy road, beginning my new life
The title poem updates the elegy form with wit and sharpness to the online age: it can't be an accident that the ending
and if I could,
I'd unfriend Death for you, report him for abuse, the troll
Who poked you, who is "following" us all, block him for good
is so painfully reminiscent of Chaucer's three young drunks setting out with their proud boast "we wol sleen this false traytour Deeth".
I really didn't need this poem's footnote on "Rip", nor the ones to "Mrs Bennet's Burden" and "Scent for a Suffragette". On the other hand I couldn't half have done with explanatory notes to "Baking Scones for Eminem" and "God is a DJ" (haven't quite got around to googling Marshall, Slim and Armin van Buuren yet). I suppose what this shows is the problem with footnotes: our readers have different areas of knowledge and ignorance and these are, more and more, generationally determined. One good reason, I think, to put them all together at the back, where readers can ignore or consult them as they wish.
The section "Poems of Pathology, Anatomy and Dealing with Death" contains some of my favourites in the collection: perhaps the subject matter sorts well with her other incarnation as a crime writer. "Keepers", juxtaposing the voices of two technicians from the nineteenth and 21st centuries whose job is to create mementos of the dead for the living, is artful and compelling (here the note was again useful for generational reasons, since I knew exactly what the Victorian mortuary photographer was up to but had never heard of a "doll re-borner"). The two poems of "Deathbed Writing Workshop", which could easily have been sentimental, are instead powerful (and the word "debridement" on which they centre is wonderful, a gift to a writer).
I'm not entirely so keen on some of the activist poems, because they strike me as too tailored to the cause. "The Sex Life of Slugs", written for an online "against rape" project, explains too much of the faintly comic process the slugs are up to, and its final lines
Meanwhile, after dark, slugs stroll
The pavements, heedless of rape
left me thinking: well yes, but they do get trodden on and salted rather a lot, so on the whole I'd still sooner be a female human. The few purely humorous poems aren't really my cup of tea either, though to be fair, "Phone Sex" sounds as if it's meant to have a tune attached, while "Lowering the Teaune" might do more for me if I had ever listened to "The Archers" (I sometimes seem to be the only person in the country who hasn't).
Mostly, though, this is a varied and entertaining collection. The medical poems, especially, are effective - it is no surprise that she has often been successful in the Hippocrates Awards.
