Poetry review – WING FORMULA: Sue Wallace-Shaddad enjoys a promising debut pamphlet by Emilie Jelinek
Wing Formula
Emilie Jelinek
Against the Grain Poetry Press
ISBN 978-1-7391684-3-8
32pp £6.00
Aptly titled Wing Formula (with an image of a swift next to the title on the front cover), many of the poems in this pamphlet include bird-related images and language. The references are not heavy-handed, but weave seamlessly throughout the pamphlet. It is interesting to see how well this works in poems on very different subjects. In the first surreal poem, “At the Dinner Table”, where ‘the tablecloth lay strewn with dead words’ Jelinek writes
Even the birds were helpless in the onslaught,
dipping and diving, their wings rendered useless.
The poem “Swift” has very short couplets with double spacing between them, giving a strong sense of space and air to the poem. The poem starts
What is a miracle
if not a small brown bird
and this couplet, with slight variations, features four times in the poem, a repetition which I think could be said to reflect how the bird ‘loops fast and high’.
“Buff Orpington” is a lovely poem, an elegy to a favourite hen which is ‘poised / in peach pantaloons’ and is a ‘saffron belle / pecking at absolutely nothing.’ ‘Brawling swallows’ feature in “March Poem” where there is hope of spring coming. The prose poem “The General” has an extended metaphor of the father as a bird: ‘My father sits hunched, wings folded’. He has ‘feathers slick and oiled as a liturgy’. At the end, ‘he takes to the air and vanishes’.
The poet writes movingly about motherhood in some of the first poems. In “Birth Day” Jelinek writes that an older sibling child would
[…] press your little snub-nose
to the thick viewing glass and watch
as I cradled her.
In “Strip-lighting”, she describes the hospital environment as ‘a cold, monochromatic, antiseptic / space with harsh lighting’; but there she experiences ‘primal, trembling love’. The poem “Instructions on How to Build a Boy” uses what feels like nursery rhyme repetition of the phrases ‘To build a boy it takes’ and ‘tsunamis, sink holes, earthquakes’. The image of a boy who ‘comets, with arms spread’ brings alive beautifully a child’s natural ease of movement.
Emilie Jelinek’s pamphlet is lit up by fresh unexpected imagery. Examples of this can be found in the poem “Annabel” where the reader learns ‘Her teeth are perfect rows of headstones / from a past war’ and her mind is ‘a laundrette’. She also has ‘dead-bird wit’.
In “The Mujahed’s Garden”, those waiting to meet the ‘Commander’ ‘stand like rows of fallen dominoes / in reverse to greet him.’ And in “UN Associate Political Affairs officer, Khost Province”, the images are very evocative: ‘his shalwar kameez billows like a sand-devil’ and ‘he is the breeze // in an oven of blistered days’.
Some of the most powerful poems in this pamphlet reflect Jelinek’s experience of Afghanistan and the impact of conflict on its citizens, particularly those in Kabul, Khost and Paktia provinces. The word ‘black’ features repetitively in the poem “Car bombing at Sayed al Shuhada High School, Kabul”; this poem is dense with meaning, playing on the negative associations ascribed to the rook. “Kafir” is hard-hitting in the way it challenges the reader to think about what an ex-prisoner experienced at Guantanamo. The role of a fourteen-year-old is described in “Baking Bread for a Household of Forty, Chamkani, Paktia Province”. Her clothing is a ‘chadari’ which she wears ‘like a chrysalis / as though she has wings, but keeps them folded.’ The poem ends on a much darker note, describing marriage, motherhood and the loss of a child, the final image being ‘blood-stained sheets on a line to dry in the sun.’
This debut pamphlet puts down a firm marker, showcasing Jelinek’s potential and demonstrating the range of topics she can write about in a memorable and expressive way. It is a pamphlet one does not forget.
Dec 2 2024
London Grip Poetry Review – Emilie Jelinek
Poetry review – WING FORMULA: Sue Wallace-Shaddad enjoys a promising debut pamphlet by Emilie Jelinek
Aptly titled Wing Formula (with an image of a swift next to the title on the front cover), many of the poems in this pamphlet include bird-related images and language. The references are not heavy-handed, but weave seamlessly throughout the pamphlet. It is interesting to see how well this works in poems on very different subjects. In the first surreal poem, “At the Dinner Table”, where ‘the tablecloth lay strewn with dead words’ Jelinek writes
The poem “Swift” has very short couplets with double spacing between them, giving a strong sense of space and air to the poem. The poem starts
and this couplet, with slight variations, features four times in the poem, a repetition which I think could be said to reflect how the bird ‘loops fast and high’.
“Buff Orpington” is a lovely poem, an elegy to a favourite hen which is ‘poised / in peach pantaloons’ and is a ‘saffron belle / pecking at absolutely nothing.’ ‘Brawling swallows’ feature in “March Poem” where there is hope of spring coming. The prose poem “The General” has an extended metaphor of the father as a bird: ‘My father sits hunched, wings folded’. He has ‘feathers slick and oiled as a liturgy’. At the end, ‘he takes to the air and vanishes’.
The poet writes movingly about motherhood in some of the first poems. In “Birth Day” Jelinek writes that an older sibling child would
In “Strip-lighting”, she describes the hospital environment as ‘a cold, monochromatic, antiseptic / space with harsh lighting’; but there she experiences ‘primal, trembling love’. The poem “Instructions on How to Build a Boy” uses what feels like nursery rhyme repetition of the phrases ‘To build a boy it takes’ and ‘tsunamis, sink holes, earthquakes’. The image of a boy who ‘comets, with arms spread’ brings alive beautifully a child’s natural ease of movement.
Emilie Jelinek’s pamphlet is lit up by fresh unexpected imagery. Examples of this can be found in the poem “Annabel” where the reader learns ‘Her teeth are perfect rows of headstones / from a past war’ and her mind is ‘a laundrette’. She also has ‘dead-bird wit’.
In “The Mujahed’s Garden”, those waiting to meet the ‘Commander’ ‘stand like rows of fallen dominoes / in reverse to greet him.’ And in “UN Associate Political Affairs officer, Khost Province”, the images are very evocative: ‘his shalwar kameez billows like a sand-devil’ and ‘he is the breeze // in an oven of blistered days’.
Some of the most powerful poems in this pamphlet reflect Jelinek’s experience of Afghanistan and the impact of conflict on its citizens, particularly those in Kabul, Khost and Paktia provinces. The word ‘black’ features repetitively in the poem “Car bombing at Sayed al Shuhada High School, Kabul”; this poem is dense with meaning, playing on the negative associations ascribed to the rook. “Kafir” is hard-hitting in the way it challenges the reader to think about what an ex-prisoner experienced at Guantanamo. The role of a fourteen-year-old is described in “Baking Bread for a Household of Forty, Chamkani, Paktia Province”. Her clothing is a ‘chadari’ which she wears ‘like a chrysalis / as though she has wings, but keeps them folded.’ The poem ends on a much darker note, describing marriage, motherhood and the loss of a child, the final image being ‘blood-stained sheets on a line to dry in the sun.’
This debut pamphlet puts down a firm marker, showcasing Jelinek’s potential and demonstrating the range of topics she can write about in a memorable and expressive way. It is a pamphlet one does not forget.