Poetry review – ALIGHTING IN TIME: Alwyn Marriage explores and enjoys the distinctive language and worldview in Lynne Wycherley’s new collection
Alighting in Time: New poems
Lynne Wycherley
Shoestring Press, 2024
ISBN 978-1-915553-59-1
60 pages, £10.00.
In 2021 I had the privilege of reviewing Lynne Wycherley’s previous poetry collection, Brooksong & Shadows. In my review of that earlier work I commented, appreciatively, on the lyrical quality of the poetry; and this quality is, again, evident in this new collection. Indeed, I would contend that there are few poets writing today whose work is so consistently lyrical.
The book is divided, by subject matter, into four parts: ‘Arc of Light’, ‘A Fugitive Eden’, ‘Touchstones’ and ‘Farm on the Rim’. The first of these, though shorter than the other sections is, in some ways, the most typical of Wycherley’s work. In six short poems, she introduces us to a neutron star, a deserted garden, a fern, a toad, a dormouse and an armillary sundial – the first poem, “To a Neutron Star”, exemplifying her poetic approach to science that is the hallmark of a number of the later poems in the book.
After the explosion, only you remained,
a small bright face suspended.
Wycherley’s engagement with the natural world sheds light on some of the smaller creatures we encounter. A toad cuts a dash in “From a pore in the earth she rises”, a poem that starts with the incisive recognition that we humans do not own the natural world: ‘In this borrowed ground we call our garden’. The next poem, “In praise of Small Weavers” is a very charming celebration of the dormouse.
Scamper-clawed:
his skills could harvest
all our brief suns –
stray quiffs of airy nothing –
weaving us a cradle. Or a bier
I call to her –
the dormouse, eremite
of leaf-litter, her
solstice suspensions, her
deep-winter drowse.
The next section, entitled ‘A Fugitive Eden’, focuses on various members of Wycherley’s family, along with memories of her childhood, in poems that are often intensely personal, and therefore not always easy to access as an outsider. However, that does not mask the beauty of some of the lines, such as ‘Can I hear / a brook, lisp-silver, flutter-straw?’ (“Brook Cottage”) and
Your Abbey
gaunt behind you, long-boned ruin,
dripping sheen and solder
after rain, and the once-marsh
lisping. As you gaze –
half shrike, half glebe – into our
gusts, our racing lives. Outpost
of a stillness we have lost.
("Fen Road to St Guthlac")
The section entitled ‘Touchstones’ is an account of some of Wycherley’s memories of working in the library at Merton College, Oxford, and is dedicated to the don, Dr Roger Highfield (history tutor, emeritus Fellow and Librarian). This section takes us deep into the life of library worker:
it floats in half-light –
Upper Library,
your haven, where folios
nest with faded wings
and roundels bloom
in glass. Outside:
the sun's slow Lazarus.
In “As Students Flow” we meet some of the people with whom she shared her working days:
Tutors flit past, breathless!
Students. Wild-flower faces,
mercurial smiles.
Two particularly lovely poems in this section are “Annunciation” and “Æfensang” (Evensong), “Annunciation” ending with the exquisite image of
Mary in her garden,
the angel ever-arriving
caritas sanctus. Her dazzled field,
his world-beyond-world.
Light's kiss.
The final section, ‘Farm on the Rim’, moves on a few years from student life and relates to life in Devon, where the subjects range from a long-ago memory of the poet’s father on a fishing trip, through the work of sub-postmasters, to waking one morning to snowfall:
We wake to snowfall, slow-motion, hypnotic,
a bright poem falling out of the sky
like god sleeting through the world
and time dissolving.
......
We watch their crystals haunt and glow
and for one breath I see our lives
as burning, brief, improbable as snow.
("Out of the Sky")
In “Newborn” there is a hint of Wycherley’s well-known aversion to radio- and micro-waves:
She is not a barcode,
not a QR code,
she was born
for face to face, not screen.
Must you estrange her
from herself?
Swathe her in 'sensors',
track, surveil her
microchip
and microwave her,
abuse, un-birth,
blaspheme?
“Orion at the Doorway” ends with an almost mystical description of the night sky, which forms a sort of benediction:
And the Seven Stars ask
what light have you sewn?
and the Hunter asks
what shadows have you slain?
as they hang there, dripping
diamonds, delicate fire,
as if the shiver of the universe
is our crucible,
our home.
Throughout this collection we are aware of Wycherley’s informed interest in science, in botany, in zoology, but never in a trite or sentimental way. There is, on occasion, a slight tendency to be esoteric; and I personally found there were words, especially scientific words, that I had to look up. This raises the old question as to whether it is acceptable to be opaque in poetry, to which I think the reply has to be that this is her poetry, it is how she sees and responds to the world, and if we want to enter and appreciate it, which is well worth doing, we will have to do it on her terms. In one or two cases Wycherley offers a glossary; with the others we just have to refer to a dictionary!
In reading this collection, I found myself moved again and again, not only by the incisive treatment of uncommon themes, but also, and more especially, by the sheer beauty of Wycherley’s language – phrases that roll deliciously off the tongue, insights that stop one in one’s tracks and reflections that make one see this beautiful and precious world differently.
Apr 24 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Lynne Wycherley
Poetry review – ALIGHTING IN TIME: Alwyn Marriage explores and enjoys the distinctive language and worldview in Lynne Wycherley’s new collection
In 2021 I had the privilege of reviewing Lynne Wycherley’s previous poetry collection, Brooksong & Shadows. In my review of that earlier work I commented, appreciatively, on the lyrical quality of the poetry; and this quality is, again, evident in this new collection. Indeed, I would contend that there are few poets writing today whose work is so consistently lyrical.
The book is divided, by subject matter, into four parts: ‘Arc of Light’, ‘A Fugitive Eden’, ‘Touchstones’ and ‘Farm on the Rim’. The first of these, though shorter than the other sections is, in some ways, the most typical of Wycherley’s work. In six short poems, she introduces us to a neutron star, a deserted garden, a fern, a toad, a dormouse and an armillary sundial – the first poem, “To a Neutron Star”, exemplifying her poetic approach to science that is the hallmark of a number of the later poems in the book.
Wycherley’s engagement with the natural world sheds light on some of the smaller creatures we encounter. A toad cuts a dash in “From a pore in the earth she rises”, a poem that starts with the incisive recognition that we humans do not own the natural world: ‘In this borrowed ground we call our garden’. The next poem, “In praise of Small Weavers” is a very charming celebration of the dormouse.
The next section, entitled ‘A Fugitive Eden’, focuses on various members of Wycherley’s family, along with memories of her childhood, in poems that are often intensely personal, and therefore not always easy to access as an outsider. However, that does not mask the beauty of some of the lines, such as ‘Can I hear / a brook, lisp-silver, flutter-straw?’ (“Brook Cottage”) and
Your Abbey gaunt behind you, long-boned ruin, dripping sheen and solder after rain, and the once-marsh lisping. As you gaze – half shrike, half glebe – into our gusts, our racing lives. Outpost of a stillness we have lost. ("Fen Road to St Guthlac")The section entitled ‘Touchstones’ is an account of some of Wycherley’s memories of working in the library at Merton College, Oxford, and is dedicated to the don, Dr Roger Highfield (history tutor, emeritus Fellow and Librarian). This section takes us deep into the life of library worker:
In “As Students Flow” we meet some of the people with whom she shared her working days:
Two particularly lovely poems in this section are “Annunciation” and “Æfensang” (Evensong), “Annunciation” ending with the exquisite image of
The final section, ‘Farm on the Rim’, moves on a few years from student life and relates to life in Devon, where the subjects range from a long-ago memory of the poet’s father on a fishing trip, through the work of sub-postmasters, to waking one morning to snowfall:
We wake to snowfall, slow-motion, hypnotic, a bright poem falling out of the sky like god sleeting through the world and time dissolving. ...... We watch their crystals haunt and glow and for one breath I see our lives as burning, brief, improbable as snow. ("Out of the Sky")In “Newborn” there is a hint of Wycherley’s well-known aversion to radio- and micro-waves:
“Orion at the Doorway” ends with an almost mystical description of the night sky, which forms a sort of benediction:
Throughout this collection we are aware of Wycherley’s informed interest in science, in botany, in zoology, but never in a trite or sentimental way. There is, on occasion, a slight tendency to be esoteric; and I personally found there were words, especially scientific words, that I had to look up. This raises the old question as to whether it is acceptable to be opaque in poetry, to which I think the reply has to be that this is her poetry, it is how she sees and responds to the world, and if we want to enter and appreciate it, which is well worth doing, we will have to do it on her terms. In one or two cases Wycherley offers a glossary; with the others we just have to refer to a dictionary!
In reading this collection, I found myself moved again and again, not only by the incisive treatment of uncommon themes, but also, and more especially, by the sheer beauty of Wycherley’s language – phrases that roll deliciously off the tongue, insights that stop one in one’s tracks and reflections that make one see this beautiful and precious world differently.