Last week I had the privilege of hearing Helen and Martin read from their new, very different books, at Wirral Poetry Festival. They each did two fifteen minute sets, which only whetted my appetite for more. I acquired both books and want to offer a flavour to those who have not yet purchased copies.
Constructing a Witch has been coming together for some time. The theme can be traced back to Ivory’s earlier collections, but in this book all the research and previous work in this area comes to fruition. The collection was a PBS recommendation and also includes colour photos of Ivory’s fascinating art work. Ivory is a skilled manipulator of language to create both precision and music in her poems. She looks at all the different ways women have been called witches, othered by the patriarchy, silenced, murdered, persecuted. She traces a line from the past and the cruel treatment of supposed witches, but links all to the present day, where women remain unsafe. There are poems about particular women executed as witches, informed by visits to places notorious for witch trials. Historical themes such as how brewing was taken away from women, and how women’s hair is fetishised, resulting in shaven heads as punishment, and many more, such as the witch mark and the humiliation of the search for it. There are also spells of reclamation, such as ‘Spell to Take Back the Night’, and empowering poems about the menopause. Despite some of the dark themes, the collection is spiced with some pointed humour at times. Overall the poems come together to celebrate women in all our power and strength. It is an important book.
No less important but highly contrasting, Martin Figura’s collection dwells on what it means to be a man in today’s world. The moving title poem has Figura’s classic surreal quality. I read this poem to be about all the men who were laid off when the mines were closed, or factories shut down, and who could not get other jobs, and therefore lost all sense of purpose. They stood about in the deserted industrial towns and gradually turned into monuments. The poem is a lament for men like this, men of my father’s generation, who had worked hard all their lives only to be let down by politicians, and the shift away from industry. There are poems about former Prime Ministers and Presidents, seen through Figura’s pointed and satiric gaze. The book opens with poems about his own childhood and Liverpool, the place of his birth (a city close to my heart). A moving poem ‘My Mother, My Father’ imagines how things might have been had his parents never met, and their ill-fated marriage never happened. This group of poems picks up and develops some of the themes from his ground-breaking book Whistle, and culminates with ‘The Leaving of Liverpool’ and ‘Dead Dad’. There are heart-breaking poems about looked-after children, which he has some person experience of, alongside poems about Salisbury hospital staff. There are illustrations in this book too, in the form of photographs. Most readers will know Figura is an accomplished photographer. Figura’s humanity and ability to wring out our hearts with a telling detail or two, runs through the collection. He is one of those poets who can make us laugh and cry in the same poem.
This piece is not a review, just a flavour of two brilliant collections I am looking forward to reading in depth and again and again. There is much to ponder and relish in both of them. These books fit together as well as their authors do, and are as good company as they are. Many congratulations to both of them for these recent achievements.
Angela Topping 