Poetry review â SHIPWRECKED: Alex Josephy browses a stimulating and linguistically adventurous collection by Wendy Holborow
Shipwrecked
Wendy Holborow
Lucy Quieter Press
ISBN 979-8602156300
93pp ÂŁ12
Itâs two years since I re-viewed Wendy Holborowâs An Italian Afternoon for Envoi magazine. I very much appreciated her evocation of place and her skilful use of varied forms to trace a narrative set in Italy, my own adopted country. Since then she has published several collections, most notably Janky Tuk Tuks, a sequence set in India and Africa. Reading her latest book in these changed times, it was a pleasure to rediscover Holborowâs infectious interest in words and language, this time played out across darker emotional territory.
The jacket image is a Holborow oil painting, its bold colours and confident brush strokes well suited to the poetâs themes; it looks like a wrecked ship going down (or perhaps staying afloat?) in a defiant blaze. The techniques and conventions of painting recur metaphorically throughout the collection, as in âSponged Outâ, where a rejected woman
âŚgoes to where the cypress trees are black
and stripe the landscape like brush strokesâŚ
âŚand she is sponged out of all vibrant compositions.
Many of these poems have an interestingly dual focus; Holborow deals with loss, death, betrayal and abandonment, while she also gives rein to a fascination with obscure diction. In âIced Overâ, for example, a spurned lover complains of
unmelting love
tugged into the esurient
freezing sea
As with many words in this collection, I had to resort to the dictionary to learn that âesurienceâ is an archaic word for a greedy kind of hunger. Later in the same poem, the loversâ life is described as âimmiscibleâ (incapable of mixing or attaining homogeneity, according to Merriam-Webster). What are these words doing in a modern, otherwise fairly colloquial poem, I wondered? Are they a form of self defence â a way for the disappointed lover to gain higher ground? It is as if the long, unfamiliar words used in many of the poems provide a kind of bulwark against pain.
Somewhere near the centre of the collection there is a delightful sequence of four poems that specifically revel in Holborowâs sesquipedalian tendencies. A definition is kindly given as a gloss: âSesquipedalian (A word thatâs very long and multisyllabic)â â though could it be one without the other, I wondered? Further investigation was irresistible, and in the event it added to my appreciation of the poetâs self irony; I discovered other definitions, including âgiven to the overuse of very long wordsâ. The slightly lighter tone of the four poems in this sequence offers a welcome counterpoint to earlier meditations on loss and grieving. The poet threads a delicate narrative across four uncommon words; my favourite is âCrytoscophilia â the urge to look inside peopleâs windows.â Here, the long words seem to hint at a vain attempt to communicate or make a connection; the poet is a peeping Tom (âthe inquisitive, lonely meâ), excluded from ordinary conversations, perhaps because of the distancing effect of grief.
As in her earlier work, Holborow employs a range of traditional poetic forms, as well as free verse and visual effects. On the theme of death (of parents and of other friends and companions) thereâs a âPantoum for the Deadâ, a touching âTriolet of Danceâ, a prose poem taking courage from Dylan Thomas (âI bow before shit, seeing the family likeness in the old familiar faecesâ), which challenges the âtaboo to think of oneâs parents having sexâ. Thereâs a villanelle âI Bask in your Disdainâ, a witty idea which for me becomes weighed down by the formâs hunger for rhyme. On the whole I found the simpler free verse poems the most moving, for instance the slender lines and pared-down imagery in âTrees Outside Montuschi Wardâ:
Today it is clement, but cold.
The trees are still,
stark sticks of charcoal
against a grey canvas of sky
as snow ticks the windowpanes.
I love the way that word âticksâ quietly conveys both fragility and a wintery serenity.
Holborow also plays with concrete effects, layout, words within words, and multiple meanings. At times, I found the poems based on wordplay a little overladen with their own cleverness â as if taking it that step further becomes a dangerous temptation. For instance, in âChercher le Mot Justeâ,
poetry is I am(bic) (m)etre I am(b) what I(amb)
enjamb
ment (meant)
I did appreciate this approach, though, in other poems such as âThe Danceâ where a partnerâs inconstancy is mirrored in the unreliability of words:
childhood sweethearts â
two red he(art)s instead of the br(own) upon black
black for you who cheated
brown for me the conspirator
conscripted to y(our) love
Holborowâs canvas is broad, drawing on cultural references from Ozymandias to Ibsen, David Hockney to Fernando Pessoa. There are poems on war and displacement, and on altered states brought on for instance by senility or âswings in mood from grey mania/to the depths of the bluesâ. These donât always land where you might expect, as in the final lines of âMedicationâ:
The medication takes her
up spiral staircases of space
to an errant jubilation.
This makes reading Shipwrecked a stimulating and on the whole uplifitng experience. There are many trails to follow, and a consoling sense of how the arts can offer companionship, virtually if not in person, in times of isolation or difficulty. I loved the three poems for the Portuguese poet Pessoa. What does Pessoa mean by âdooredâ? To me itâs a great example of negative capability.
How he wonders if the people
across the road, in that room
are as lonely as he is,
so he sits to write a poem
for his Ophelia that
loveâs large power is also doored.
Alex Josephy
London Grip Poetry Review – Wendy Holborow
October 14, 2020
Poetry review â SHIPWRECKED: Alex Josephy browses a stimulating and linguistically adventurous collection by Wendy Holborow
Itâs two years since I re-viewed Wendy Holborowâs An Italian Afternoon for Envoi magazine. I very much appreciated her evocation of place and her skilful use of varied forms to trace a narrative set in Italy, my own adopted country. Since then she has published several collections, most notably Janky Tuk Tuks, a sequence set in India and Africa. Reading her latest book in these changed times, it was a pleasure to rediscover Holborowâs infectious interest in words and language, this time played out across darker emotional territory.
The jacket image is a Holborow oil painting, its bold colours and confident brush strokes well suited to the poetâs themes; it looks like a wrecked ship going down (or perhaps staying afloat?) in a defiant blaze. The techniques and conventions of painting recur metaphorically throughout the collection, as in âSponged Outâ, where a rejected woman
Many of these poems have an interestingly dual focus; Holborow deals with loss, death, betrayal and abandonment, while she also gives rein to a fascination with obscure diction. In âIced Overâ, for example, a spurned lover complains of
As with many words in this collection, I had to resort to the dictionary to learn that âesurienceâ is an archaic word for a greedy kind of hunger. Later in the same poem, the loversâ life is described as âimmiscibleâ (incapable of mixing or attaining homogeneity, according to Merriam-Webster). What are these words doing in a modern, otherwise fairly colloquial poem, I wondered? Are they a form of self defence â a way for the disappointed lover to gain higher ground? It is as if the long, unfamiliar words used in many of the poems provide a kind of bulwark against pain.
Somewhere near the centre of the collection there is a delightful sequence of four poems that specifically revel in Holborowâs sesquipedalian tendencies. A definition is kindly given as a gloss: âSesquipedalian (A word thatâs very long and multisyllabic)â â though could it be one without the other, I wondered? Further investigation was irresistible, and in the event it added to my appreciation of the poetâs self irony; I discovered other definitions, including âgiven to the overuse of very long wordsâ. The slightly lighter tone of the four poems in this sequence offers a welcome counterpoint to earlier meditations on loss and grieving. The poet threads a delicate narrative across four uncommon words; my favourite is âCrytoscophilia â the urge to look inside peopleâs windows.â Here, the long words seem to hint at a vain attempt to communicate or make a connection; the poet is a peeping Tom (âthe inquisitive, lonely meâ), excluded from ordinary conversations, perhaps because of the distancing effect of grief.
As in her earlier work, Holborow employs a range of traditional poetic forms, as well as free verse and visual effects. On the theme of death (of parents and of other friends and companions) thereâs a âPantoum for the Deadâ, a touching âTriolet of Danceâ, a prose poem taking courage from Dylan Thomas (âI bow before shit, seeing the family likeness in the old familiar faecesâ), which challenges the âtaboo to think of oneâs parents having sexâ. Thereâs a villanelle âI Bask in your Disdainâ, a witty idea which for me becomes weighed down by the formâs hunger for rhyme. On the whole I found the simpler free verse poems the most moving, for instance the slender lines and pared-down imagery in âTrees Outside Montuschi Wardâ:
I love the way that word âticksâ quietly conveys both fragility and a wintery serenity.
Holborow also plays with concrete effects, layout, words within words, and multiple meanings. At times, I found the poems based on wordplay a little overladen with their own cleverness â as if taking it that step further becomes a dangerous temptation. For instance, in âChercher le Mot Justeâ,
I did appreciate this approach, though, in other poems such as âThe Danceâ where a partnerâs inconstancy is mirrored in the unreliability of words:
Holborowâs canvas is broad, drawing on cultural references from Ozymandias to Ibsen, David Hockney to Fernando Pessoa. There are poems on war and displacement, and on altered states brought on for instance by senility or âswings in mood from grey mania/to the depths of the bluesâ. These donât always land where you might expect, as in the final lines of âMedicationâ:
This makes reading Shipwrecked a stimulating and on the whole uplifitng experience. There are many trails to follow, and a consoling sense of how the arts can offer companionship, virtually if not in person, in times of isolation or difficulty. I loved the three poems for the Portuguese poet Pessoa. What does Pessoa mean by âdooredâ? To me itâs a great example of negative capability.
Alex Josephy