Poetry review – BREAKING A MARE: Pat Edwards explores the many metaphors in Christina Thatcher’s poems on equine themes
Breaking a Mare
Christina Thatcher
Parthian Poetry
ISBN 978-1-917140-24-9
£10
Reading the sexually charged first poem, ‘Welcome to the Barn’, as the poet might have intended, I’m trying so hard not to feel it, to just see the innocence of the riders and their horses. But, she keeps asking me to “see them”, presses me “what can you picture now?” Surely this is about horses isn’t it, getting ready for ‘Show Day’ with braids so they “look pretty”? Well, yes, but the poet uses her knowledge of this horsey world, rich with symbolism, to trace elements of puberty and coming of age. At times it feels too obvious, too blatant, all this talk of leather, of flanks, of saddles. But, the further into the collection we go, the greater is the need to understand the poet’s intention. I am sure she is trying to show us how insidious and all-consuming these kinds of experiences are.
What woman doesn’t recognise ‘The Man Down the Street’ who tells you “we are so alike”, who may have more on his mind than your shared love of animals? Likewise, the man who “waits in the woods”, except there is the most awful nightmarish surprise
He is not a he at all
but my mother
dressed as this hallowed legend.
Thatcher takes us to darker and darker realms, all familiar places where women lose their identity by becoming wives and mothers. This is epitomised in ‘My Mother Knits the Matriarchal Home’ where the poet takes the stereotypical female craft of knitting and weaves in “a farmhouse kitchen”, before reaching the realisation “nothing in this place can cry out”. I was struck by the thoroughly unpleasant, even dangerous, nature of the mother. She does not protect or nurture; she may even act as facilitator for the farm hands who would ruin the young girls, “need a hand sweetheart? Let me help you with that”.
The further into the collection we read, the more we find cumulative horrors where ‘Hide and Seek’ isn’t a game and ‘Unearthing’ reveals the ignominy of womanhood that is wanted – but not at any cost! Imagine a teenage boy “just digging and digging” trying to make a girl feel aroused.
The mare is a constant image throughout, at times strong and athletic, a strikingly beautiful creature; but at other times broken, betrayed, saddled. Life on the farm, in the countryside, is littered with powerful metaphor, from fields of crops that need to be tended and harvested, through family life for which you should “be grateful”, to the horses used and abused. Riding and being ridden are used as reminders of technique, of the power play between girl and horse. This also manifests in poems about the skills needed to use a pitchfork, to move bales, to muck out, to sharpen blades. The constant work ethic implied, if you want to earn a living from the land, serves as illustration for the role of women,
work until your skin wears
so thin over your bones that you become translucent.
That we become like our mothers, often at their command, yet want to fight with all our strength not to follow them into all their traps is brilliantly explored in ‘Not Our Fight’. The mother and daughter go at one another, shouting, neither backing down, until they realise “too late” that their “limbs [are] pulled high by ghosts”. There are generational forces at play, an inevitability about their fate. The poem that follows this one, ‘Some Say’, ends with “some say every scream is an echo”.
It could be argued that these poems are relentless, every turn of the page yet more about the dangers lurking. Yes, it’s not a comfortable read because this is someone’s reality, a warning, an exposition. There are unbearable poems where ponies die, mares are shot, foals don’t survive. We come to learn in ‘We played dead’ that “none of us can ever really be saved”. There is an attempt in ‘Reanimation’ to imagine the horse at her best as “she gallops towards my voice” but the reader knows the reality that the horse is going to have to be shot.
The final poems in the collection take us to the spectacle of the rodeo, but even the thrills and skills needed to entertain in this strange circus take us to places where women are “trampled to near death”. The very last poem dares to offer just a glimmer of hope,
Bring your fear like its own soft prayer,
Bring your two ripe ears and, finally, listen.
We are left with the image of a fine horse, its ears pricked up, and we wonder what it hears, what we might learn if we all just stop and listen.
This collection isn’t for the faint-hearted but it is for anyone who appreciates the power of poetry to warn, to move, to enlighten, especially when in the hands of a poet in full command of her craft. Well ridden Christina Thatcher; maybe this counts as dressage?
Apr 8 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Christina Thatcher
Poetry review – BREAKING A MARE: Pat Edwards explores the many metaphors in Christina Thatcher’s poems on equine themes
Reading the sexually charged first poem, ‘Welcome to the Barn’, as the poet might have intended, I’m trying so hard not to feel it, to just see the innocence of the riders and their horses. But, she keeps asking me to “see them”, presses me “what can you picture now?” Surely this is about horses isn’t it, getting ready for ‘Show Day’ with braids so they “look pretty”? Well, yes, but the poet uses her knowledge of this horsey world, rich with symbolism, to trace elements of puberty and coming of age. At times it feels too obvious, too blatant, all this talk of leather, of flanks, of saddles. But, the further into the collection we go, the greater is the need to understand the poet’s intention. I am sure she is trying to show us how insidious and all-consuming these kinds of experiences are.
What woman doesn’t recognise ‘The Man Down the Street’ who tells you “we are so alike”, who may have more on his mind than your shared love of animals? Likewise, the man who “waits in the woods”, except there is the most awful nightmarish surprise
Thatcher takes us to darker and darker realms, all familiar places where women lose their identity by becoming wives and mothers. This is epitomised in ‘My Mother Knits the Matriarchal Home’ where the poet takes the stereotypical female craft of knitting and weaves in “a farmhouse kitchen”, before reaching the realisation “nothing in this place can cry out”. I was struck by the thoroughly unpleasant, even dangerous, nature of the mother. She does not protect or nurture; she may even act as facilitator for the farm hands who would ruin the young girls, “need a hand sweetheart? Let me help you with that”.
The further into the collection we read, the more we find cumulative horrors where ‘Hide and Seek’ isn’t a game and ‘Unearthing’ reveals the ignominy of womanhood that is wanted – but not at any cost! Imagine a teenage boy “just digging and digging” trying to make a girl feel aroused.
The mare is a constant image throughout, at times strong and athletic, a strikingly beautiful creature; but at other times broken, betrayed, saddled. Life on the farm, in the countryside, is littered with powerful metaphor, from fields of crops that need to be tended and harvested, through family life for which you should “be grateful”, to the horses used and abused. Riding and being ridden are used as reminders of technique, of the power play between girl and horse. This also manifests in poems about the skills needed to use a pitchfork, to move bales, to muck out, to sharpen blades. The constant work ethic implied, if you want to earn a living from the land, serves as illustration for the role of women,
That we become like our mothers, often at their command, yet want to fight with all our strength not to follow them into all their traps is brilliantly explored in ‘Not Our Fight’. The mother and daughter go at one another, shouting, neither backing down, until they realise “too late” that their “limbs [are] pulled high by ghosts”. There are generational forces at play, an inevitability about their fate. The poem that follows this one, ‘Some Say’, ends with “some say every scream is an echo”.
It could be argued that these poems are relentless, every turn of the page yet more about the dangers lurking. Yes, it’s not a comfortable read because this is someone’s reality, a warning, an exposition. There are unbearable poems where ponies die, mares are shot, foals don’t survive. We come to learn in ‘We played dead’ that “none of us can ever really be saved”. There is an attempt in ‘Reanimation’ to imagine the horse at her best as “she gallops towards my voice” but the reader knows the reality that the horse is going to have to be shot.
The final poems in the collection take us to the spectacle of the rodeo, but even the thrills and skills needed to entertain in this strange circus take us to places where women are “trampled to near death”. The very last poem dares to offer just a glimmer of hope,
We are left with the image of a fine horse, its ears pricked up, and we wonder what it hears, what we might learn if we all just stop and listen.
This collection isn’t for the faint-hearted but it is for anyone who appreciates the power of poetry to warn, to move, to enlighten, especially when in the hands of a poet in full command of her craft. Well ridden Christina Thatcher; maybe this counts as dressage?