Poetry Review – Disposing of the Clothes: Maria C. McCarthy reviews a short but moving collection by Janet Montefiore
Disposing of the Clothes and Other Poems
Janet Montefiore.
Shoestring Press, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912524-42-6
24pp ÂŁ7
It is rare that I cry out loud on reading a poem, but this was the case with the very first poem of Janet Montefioreâs pamphlet, Disposing of the Clothes. âDreams after Childbirthâ sinks into a myth-like world, juxtaposing the visceral details of a difficult birth, âthe too-early-born leg stirring strangely, and the controlled rush to the operating theatreâ, with waking dreams of sorting shells âin order carefully, as when Psyche sorted her grainsâ. As sleep comes, the poet communes with her dead father, to tell him âhow his grandchild was born, pouring out language not bloodâ; it was the ending of this poem that caught me by surprise.
Each of these poems has a form, sometimes recognisable as sonnets, villanelles or rhyming couplets. In other poems, there are forms of the poetâs own creation, such as in âThe Crab and Winkle Way in Novemberâ, which comprises three octets and a quatrain, each with a near-identical refrain.
In âCuckoo Flowersâ, Montefiore exposes her art, unpicks a metaphor, as if she can deconstruct both her grief (for her mother?) and the couplet that comes to her in a dream:
and the cuckoo-flower
choked in snow
This is how I read it: the flower is pleasure
which the snow stifles. Clear enough: desire
frozen into silence
Then, without striving or trying to impose meaning, there arrives âan image without words, exact and vividâ.
âFeathered the Bed of Nightmareâ is a cumulative tale, in the form of the nursery rhyme âThe House that Jack Builtâ, with stanzas increasing in length from an opening couplet and, in this poem, culminating in a sonnet. Readers could spend an hour unpicking this poem, or just read it aloud, and enjoy the rhythm, the rhyme, the building of images and metaphors.
Grief powers this collection; grief for those that have died, and for those that are lost in other ways. âThe Wolfâs Leapâ is about the poetâs son, a refrain of âyouâll die if you fall thereâ offered when he was a child and put himself in danger, then spoken again as âYears later you sit slumped, your unwashed hair / on the kitchen table, hiding your faceâ.
There is a running theme of what, or who, you can save or must let go. The subjects of the âin memoriamâ poems are in the latter category; the âeggs of hedgehogsâ in âShell Dreamsâ may yet be saved, and the facing of this poem with âWolfâs Leapâ leads the reader to draw parallels with the poetâs son. The words âfor I could only foster / not feed himâ in âShell Dreamsâ could as easily apply to the son in âWolfâs Leapâ.
My last word must go to the title poem, âDisposing of the Clothesâ. This is a superb sonnet, where the octet describes the grandeur of the clothes that Montefioreâs father, a bishop, was buried in, and those that were given away. This finery is described without the awe with which those who are not the children of a bishop might describe it: his ring is âhis bishopâs blingâ; and of the clothes being passed on, âthe cloth of gold, lawn sleeves and orange velvet / embroideryâ the poet remarks that âsome other bishop will be glad to wear itâ. After the turn in the sonnet, we see the man, not the bishop, described: âhis baggy pullover and trousers, / not even Oxfam would have wanted those.â It ends with the poignancy of asking the movers
to leave Paâs anorak hanging by the stairs
ready for one more walk on Wandsworth Common
London Grip Poetry Review – Janet Montefiore
March 3, 2020
Poetry Review – Disposing of the Clothes: Maria C. McCarthy reviews a short but moving collection by Janet Montefiore
It is rare that I cry out loud on reading a poem, but this was the case with the very first poem of Janet Montefioreâs pamphlet, Disposing of the Clothes. âDreams after Childbirthâ sinks into a myth-like world, juxtaposing the visceral details of a difficult birth, âthe too-early-born leg stirring strangely, and the controlled rush to the operating theatreâ, with waking dreams of sorting shells âin order carefully, as when Psyche sorted her grainsâ. As sleep comes, the poet communes with her dead father, to tell him âhow his grandchild was born, pouring out language not bloodâ; it was the ending of this poem that caught me by surprise.
Each of these poems has a form, sometimes recognisable as sonnets, villanelles or rhyming couplets. In other poems, there are forms of the poetâs own creation, such as in âThe Crab and Winkle Way in Novemberâ, which comprises three octets and a quatrain, each with a near-identical refrain.
In âCuckoo Flowersâ, Montefiore exposes her art, unpicks a metaphor, as if she can deconstruct both her grief (for her mother?) and the couplet that comes to her in a dream:
Then, without striving or trying to impose meaning, there arrives âan image without words, exact and vividâ.
âFeathered the Bed of Nightmareâ is a cumulative tale, in the form of the nursery rhyme âThe House that Jack Builtâ, with stanzas increasing in length from an opening couplet and, in this poem, culminating in a sonnet. Readers could spend an hour unpicking this poem, or just read it aloud, and enjoy the rhythm, the rhyme, the building of images and metaphors.
Grief powers this collection; grief for those that have died, and for those that are lost in other ways. âThe Wolfâs Leapâ is about the poetâs son, a refrain of âyouâll die if you fall thereâ offered when he was a child and put himself in danger, then spoken again as âYears later you sit slumped, your unwashed hair / on the kitchen table, hiding your faceâ.
There is a running theme of what, or who, you can save or must let go. The subjects of the âin memoriamâ poems are in the latter category; the âeggs of hedgehogsâ in âShell Dreamsâ may yet be saved, and the facing of this poem with âWolfâs Leapâ leads the reader to draw parallels with the poetâs son. The words âfor I could only foster / not feed himâ in âShell Dreamsâ could as easily apply to the son in âWolfâs Leapâ.
My last word must go to the title poem, âDisposing of the Clothesâ. This is a superb sonnet, where the octet describes the grandeur of the clothes that Montefioreâs father, a bishop, was buried in, and those that were given away. This finery is described without the awe with which those who are not the children of a bishop might describe it: his ring is âhis bishopâs blingâ; and of the clothes being passed on, âthe cloth of gold, lawn sleeves and orange velvet / embroideryâ the poet remarks that âsome other bishop will be glad to wear itâ. After the turn in the sonnet, we see the man, not the bishop, described: âhis baggy pullover and trousers, / not even Oxfam would have wanted those.â It ends with the poignancy of asking the movers