Poetry review – SECRET CODES: Jennifer Johnson enjoys and is intrigued by an element of mystery in Marian Eastwood’s poems
Secret Codes
Marian Eastwood
Wisdomia
ISBN 978-1-0369-2330-3
70pp £15.00
Some poets will know the writer from having been invited to read at the Oxford Poetry Circle. Fewer will know her previous role as a Labour Attaché for the Philippine Mission to the UN. Her experience of both Filipino and Western cultures gives Eastwood an original voice.
Secret Codes is made up of a debut collection of Eastwood’s poems enhanced by rather beautiful artwork, some of which is by members of the Eastwood family. The book is divided into 3 parts, “Flight”, “Ground Control” and “Decoded”. The language is accessible but rich with energetic intensity. Space will enable me to examine only a few of the poems on this book.
The first poem in the book is the mysterious “Secret Codes”. Codes are generally given where matter needs to be hidden; but such ‘false’ codes are here compared with other real codes that ‘come from within’. The poem begins:
Parachutes in the night
our whole being falling,
we dropped behind enemy lines.
Now I got onto my feet
as instructed.
You had dropped on ahead.
Armed with false hopes,
you made desperate mistakes;
the secret codes you had been given
discovered to be false,
“What is the secret code?”
You asked when I caught up.
“Is it forbidden to give me the answer?”
Later we are told painfully ‘When I left, you died.’ The poem ends with an intriguing last stanza.
All his secret codes were false.
My life story was never his.
Codes come from within.
My own secret code I deciphered:
M,J,J,T,D,M, C.
The speaker of the poem has acquired self-awareness through deciphering ‘my own secret code’. However, I’m personally unsure what the letters in the last line stand for. They may perhaps relate in some way to the third “Decoded” section of the book.
The second poem introduces some Filipino history along with vocabulary such as ‘Capiz shells’, ‘haranas’ and ‘Indios’. One couple in the poem’s story eloped
But then they were caught by the love police.
He was put in prison for elopement, for the disregard
for the delusions that divided aristocrats from Indios.
The poem ends with ‘the flight plans in their history.’
In the poem “Black Friday” there are the interesting lines ‘In grief there is you and me. The strings untied,/ the doves set free’. The poem then goes on
He was called by death, so cold: body and soul already taken.
They threw in the earth and there was no more.
It was me alone standing there after our eleventh year.
It was Black Friday and it was not for the living
except for those who were after all only selling.
The poem ends with a feeling of gratitude for having had the experienced of love.
I’m keeping my heart open and I will always be grateful
because love is stronger than what was said to me.
Black Friday is not just monster traffic.
It holds great value to me, a new romantic!
The second section “Ground Control” begins with the haunting poem “Indios Bravos”. The reader is told about Giolo, a C17 slave arm was displayed in an Oxford exhibition. The persona says ‘I saw your outstretched/tattooed forearm, but I couldn’t grasp it.’ This shows how the persona identifies with Giolo feeling that both he and she have become ‘objects of curiosity’ in Oxford. After noting the continuance of human trafficking, the poem ends
Giolo, your spirit found me and it screamed from the grave:
“Freedom from slavery!”
“‘Art in Prison” offers an interesting thought concerning the limitations of AI.
You, AI artist, perfect
cannot find the depth
we humans make complicated.
You, real artist imperfect.
These lines refer to the Confucian notion that the ideas we should follow are simple, but they are always complicated by people. The fourth line implies that human artists are uniquely individual due to their very human imperfections, and it is these that enable them to produce real art.
“Dis(connected)” expresses a global phenomenon and I think that the following lines describe phenomena familiar to anyone who has worked in the Aid world or the UN.
Flags fly, official statements:
some nations on missions,
some nations in misery.
The broken chair is distant.
Dis(connected).
The poem ends simply with the never-ending problem of representation by well-paid officials who understand little of the world’s poor they are supposedly speaking up for.
Rich and the very rich
claim to represent the poor, very poor.
Dis(connected).
In another political poem “I am not following” the poet makes use of the version of the Mother Goose story in which she, despite her affable nature, becomes corrupted by the Demon King. The danger is, of course, for the goslings who instinctively follow her, a situation expressed in the following lines.
I’m afraid, when blind,
one who all follow will lead to a fall.
Follow a goose, whether thin or fat –
or even Mother Goose.
The final poem in the book “Take me back to the Sacred Mountain” concerns the persona’s religious belief and the comfort that can be found through it. In this poem the ‘the Angel’s cave’ is visited:
Many downtrodden hearts are compelled to trek
there, seeking the Angel’s intercession, whispering their
petitions in mystical holes in the cave.
We are told that the persona visits the shrine ‘high above the Apulian sea’ on two occasions when ‘two souls were stolen from us by Death’ and ‘Saint Michael heard me pray’, the ground being sacred to him. The persona briefly sees her mother again and can ‘tell her what I wanted to say’. There is also a realisation that the suffering has happened to many through the ages as they have ‘prayed for centuries’.
I recommend this debut collection for its energetic and original voice and look forward to reading what this poet writes in the future.
Jul 4 2025
London Grip Poetry Review – Marian Eastwood
Poetry review – SECRET CODES: Jennifer Johnson enjoys and is intrigued by an element of mystery in Marian Eastwood’s poems
Some poets will know the writer from having been invited to read at the Oxford Poetry Circle. Fewer will know her previous role as a Labour Attaché for the Philippine Mission to the UN. Her experience of both Filipino and Western cultures gives Eastwood an original voice.
Secret Codes is made up of a debut collection of Eastwood’s poems enhanced by rather beautiful artwork, some of which is by members of the Eastwood family. The book is divided into 3 parts, “Flight”, “Ground Control” and “Decoded”. The language is accessible but rich with energetic intensity. Space will enable me to examine only a few of the poems on this book.
The first poem in the book is the mysterious “Secret Codes”. Codes are generally given where matter needs to be hidden; but such ‘false’ codes are here compared with other real codes that ‘come from within’. The poem begins:
Later we are told painfully ‘When I left, you died.’ The poem ends with an intriguing last stanza.
The speaker of the poem has acquired self-awareness through deciphering ‘my own secret code’. However, I’m personally unsure what the letters in the last line stand for. They may perhaps relate in some way to the third “Decoded” section of the book.
The second poem introduces some Filipino history along with vocabulary such as ‘Capiz shells’, ‘haranas’ and ‘Indios’. One couple in the poem’s story eloped
The poem ends with ‘the flight plans in their history.’
In the poem “Black Friday” there are the interesting lines ‘In grief there is you and me. The strings untied,/ the doves set free’. The poem then goes on
The poem ends with a feeling of gratitude for having had the experienced of love.
The second section “Ground Control” begins with the haunting poem “Indios Bravos”. The reader is told about Giolo, a C17 slave arm was displayed in an Oxford exhibition. The persona says ‘I saw your outstretched/tattooed forearm, but I couldn’t grasp it.’ This shows how the persona identifies with Giolo feeling that both he and she have become ‘objects of curiosity’ in Oxford. After noting the continuance of human trafficking, the poem ends
“‘Art in Prison” offers an interesting thought concerning the limitations of AI.
These lines refer to the Confucian notion that the ideas we should follow are simple, but they are always complicated by people. The fourth line implies that human artists are uniquely individual due to their very human imperfections, and it is these that enable them to produce real art.
“Dis(connected)” expresses a global phenomenon and I think that the following lines describe phenomena familiar to anyone who has worked in the Aid world or the UN.
The poem ends simply with the never-ending problem of representation by well-paid officials who understand little of the world’s poor they are supposedly speaking up for.
In another political poem “I am not following” the poet makes use of the version of the Mother Goose story in which she, despite her affable nature, becomes corrupted by the Demon King. The danger is, of course, for the goslings who instinctively follow her, a situation expressed in the following lines.
The final poem in the book “Take me back to the Sacred Mountain” concerns the persona’s religious belief and the comfort that can be found through it. In this poem the ‘the Angel’s cave’ is visited:
We are told that the persona visits the shrine ‘high above the Apulian sea’ on two occasions when ‘two souls were stolen from us by Death’ and ‘Saint Michael heard me pray’, the ground being sacred to him. The persona briefly sees her mother again and can ‘tell her what I wanted to say’. There is also a realisation that the suffering has happened to many through the ages as they have ‘prayed for centuries’.
I recommend this debut collection for its energetic and original voice and look forward to reading what this poet writes in the future.