Poetry review – SALT AND SNOW: Rennie Halstead finds universal insights in this very personal collection by Naomi Foyle
Salt and Snow
Naomi Foyle
Waterloo Press
ISBN: 978-1-915241-21-4
£12
Some poets might fight shy of making a collection of memorial poems. In Salt and Snow, Naomi Foyle embraces the idea of remembering people and events. Some of the poems are personal, recalling friends and fellow writers; but the best poems have something more to say. In these poems, Foyle uses the memories to examine some of the universal truths behind people’s lives. What comes across most clearly in Foyle’s collection is that people matter, and particularly the way individuals and nations treat one another should be in the context of a moral code, a sense of right and wrong.
Some of the poems demonstrate how ordinary people leading ordinary lives shine through the everyday with their kindness. Others pick up the cruelty and injustice of criminal behaviour and expose the reality behind newspaper headlines. Another group picks up on world events, sometimes political, sometimes natural disaster, and reflect on what that means.
Amongst the well-known public figures remembered is a poem to Sylvia Plath. Foyle writes of a visit to Plath’s burial place, where she meets another Plath fan who directs her to the grave. Foyle describes them sitting in the graveyard: ‘An inky blur on a dampened sheet, / I seep across the fields as evening falls’. They drink cabernet sauvignon, read favourite lines to each other and talk ‘deep into the night’, ending the evening:
As the moon burns a hole in the clouds,
I unwrap my Tarot deck, fan the cards
above her bones. You choose
The Fool. Somewhere close
a low bell tolls.
“Electric blanket landlady” is one of several poems unconnected with the world of literature and politics and remembers Joan Brady, a midwife and nursing sister, who was Foyle’s landlady and is fondly portrayed:
Fretting over biscuits, she’d complain
of gout and gas bills, fill the kettle,
refresh my cup with memories of wartime Burma,
the boat to Britain, nursing in the NHS.
As an activist, it’s not surprising that Foyle uses several of her poems to address political issues. “Edward Colston” focuses on her memory of watching the toppling of the statue of the slave trader into Bristol dock:
the black spotted blood
drop of a ladybird
claiming a stem
Foyle is not on the quayside, but watching from a distance:
nestled on the crest of a hill
between tower block and garden centre
Foyle put the toppling of the statue in the context of worldwide anti-racist protest ‘from Minneapolis to London’ while also referencing a white friend who acknowledges ‘her fear / of black men on the street at night.’
“Super nova” examines the 7th of October attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the invasion of Gaza. Foyle focuses on Shani Louk, a German-Israeli tattooist and pacifist who was killed in the attack, her body afterwards being paraded through the streets of Gaza: ‘your limp body / under the heel of the gunman’. The second part of the poem focus on the retribution Gaza faced, with men sifting through the bombing rubble as they ‘tenderly lift / red wet chunks / of sisters, brothers, mothers / fathers, daughters, sons // into plastic bags / from a bakery / now ground to dust’
Foyle’s anger over Gaza continues in “Striver”. The poet looks at two photographs of a Palestinian boy, Mujahid, taken by Steve Sosebee, an American physician. The first shows Mujahid with his oncology team after his successful chemotherapy treatment for cancer. The second photo shows the shrouded bodies of Mujahid and his family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza
Your struggles are over, Mujahid
Your solemn face still
on my timeline
[…]
In that other photo your doctor posted I don’t know
which in the row of eight white-shrouded corpses is yours.
The name Mujahid means Striver.
“Salt & Snow” examines a different story of cruelty. Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was abused and killed by his father and his father’s lover in Birmingham during the pandemic. Foyle examines our embarrassment and reluctance to face this worst element of human behaviour:
No one spoke
of him
and when I did
my friends quietly changed
the subject -
for what was there to say
we hadn’t said
already?
Foyle picks up this idea of the eternal nature of cruelty and suffering in “Salt, Snow, Earth”:
and so it goes on and on and on
round and round in every shade of hand
– claw-teeth, hard palm, fist –
There are some interesting variations of style in this collection. “Organisational change” is a villanelle remembering Simon Barker, an English academic & Shakespearian scholar. The poem could have been written for the present American administration as it attempts to rewrite cultural history:
People I’ve worked with for years aren’t here.
Resignations tendered; severance ‘volunteered for’:
apparently, they chose to disappear
“Telling Gwendy I’m autistic” is a corona, an impressive heroic crown of sonnets whilst “Bomb” is a concrete poem. “After the earthquake” with its highly fragmented form reflects the chaotic upheaval of the Turkish/Syria earthquake of February 6th, 2023, and captures the terror of being buried: ‘when the ceiling is a coffin lid / the room a casket of plaster dust a gas pipe crooking your throat / not even a hipflask would save you from thirst’.
What stands out for me throughout this collection is the sheer beauty of expression and the deep underlying humanity that is characteristic of Foyle’s work. Highly recommended.
Apr 9 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Naomi Foyle
Poetry review – SALT AND SNOW: Rennie Halstead finds universal insights in this very personal collection by Naomi Foyle
Some poets might fight shy of making a collection of memorial poems. In Salt and Snow, Naomi Foyle embraces the idea of remembering people and events. Some of the poems are personal, recalling friends and fellow writers; but the best poems have something more to say. In these poems, Foyle uses the memories to examine some of the universal truths behind people’s lives. What comes across most clearly in Foyle’s collection is that people matter, and particularly the way individuals and nations treat one another should be in the context of a moral code, a sense of right and wrong.
Some of the poems demonstrate how ordinary people leading ordinary lives shine through the everyday with their kindness. Others pick up the cruelty and injustice of criminal behaviour and expose the reality behind newspaper headlines. Another group picks up on world events, sometimes political, sometimes natural disaster, and reflect on what that means.
Amongst the well-known public figures remembered is a poem to Sylvia Plath. Foyle writes of a visit to Plath’s burial place, where she meets another Plath fan who directs her to the grave. Foyle describes them sitting in the graveyard: ‘An inky blur on a dampened sheet, / I seep across the fields as evening falls’. They drink cabernet sauvignon, read favourite lines to each other and talk ‘deep into the night’, ending the evening:
“Electric blanket landlady” is one of several poems unconnected with the world of literature and politics and remembers Joan Brady, a midwife and nursing sister, who was Foyle’s landlady and is fondly portrayed:
As an activist, it’s not surprising that Foyle uses several of her poems to address political issues. “Edward Colston” focuses on her memory of watching the toppling of the statue of the slave trader into Bristol dock:
the black spotted blood drop of a ladybird claiming a stemFoyle is not on the quayside, but watching from a distance:
nestled on the crest of a hill between tower block and garden centreFoyle put the toppling of the statue in the context of worldwide anti-racist protest ‘from Minneapolis to London’ while also referencing a white friend who acknowledges ‘her fear / of black men on the street at night.’
“Super nova” examines the 7th of October attack by Hamas on Israel that sparked the invasion of Gaza. Foyle focuses on Shani Louk, a German-Israeli tattooist and pacifist who was killed in the attack, her body afterwards being paraded through the streets of Gaza: ‘your limp body / under the heel of the gunman’. The second part of the poem focus on the retribution Gaza faced, with men sifting through the bombing rubble as they ‘tenderly lift / red wet chunks / of sisters, brothers, mothers / fathers, daughters, sons // into plastic bags / from a bakery / now ground to dust’
Foyle’s anger over Gaza continues in “Striver”. The poet looks at two photographs of a Palestinian boy, Mujahid, taken by Steve Sosebee, an American physician. The first shows Mujahid with his oncology team after his successful chemotherapy treatment for cancer. The second photo shows the shrouded bodies of Mujahid and his family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza
The name Mujahid means Striver.
“Salt & Snow” examines a different story of cruelty. Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was abused and killed by his father and his father’s lover in Birmingham during the pandemic. Foyle examines our embarrassment and reluctance to face this worst element of human behaviour:
Foyle picks up this idea of the eternal nature of cruelty and suffering in “Salt, Snow, Earth”:
There are some interesting variations of style in this collection. “Organisational change” is a villanelle remembering Simon Barker, an English academic & Shakespearian scholar. The poem could have been written for the present American administration as it attempts to rewrite cultural history:
“Telling Gwendy I’m autistic” is a corona, an impressive heroic crown of sonnets whilst “Bomb” is a concrete poem. “After the earthquake” with its highly fragmented form reflects the chaotic upheaval of the Turkish/Syria earthquake of February 6th, 2023, and captures the terror of being buried: ‘when the ceiling is a coffin lid / the room a casket of plaster dust a gas pipe crooking your throat / not even a hipflask would save you from thirst’.
What stands out for me throughout this collection is the sheer beauty of expression and the deep underlying humanity that is characteristic of Foyle’s work. Highly recommended.