Poetry review – WILD BOAR: Pat Edwards explores the world conjured and vividly conveyed by Jenny Hope’s poems
Wild Boar
Jenny Hope
V. Press
ISBN 978-1-7394122-6-5
£11.99
Flicking through this collection, you cannot miss the fact that titles make numerous references to the natural world, its mysteries and magic. Hope writes with a green pen and considers our precious but sometimes dwindling and changing environment. She often personifies trees and animals in order to intensify the reader’s experience and she takes every opportunity to offer connection and to make us share her wonderment. The language is unflinching, raw, and moving as she journeys through the seasons, linking the changes and evolution to those often felt by women as they navigate their lives.
The bear of the opening poem “stirs, stretches, shits, then saunters to open ground.” The woman “wants his flesh pressed against her.” Inevitably, “he runs a claw along her form, opens skin / exposes those secrets hidden from eyes and feeds them.” Then the bear vanishes. There is a familiarity about this pattern of events, with the the woman surviving a wound but left to get on in “her new skin”. Here we sense the cyclical coming and going of all that emerges from the depths of winter as renewal comes with each spring. This poem sets the scene and introduces us to the idea of skin, how it can be shed, re-grown and adapted to the conditions.
Of course, skin conjures up other thoughts such as a barrier, protection, animals, nakedness. It reminds us of the fragility but also the strength of this amazing multi-layered human organ. Some of the poems which mention it do so in terms of its imperfections but also talk of “skin taken, moulded into gloves” or of “skin / flailed from your flesh…stretched taut and hung within a frame.” Another poem considers the tough skin on our heels but questions the wisdom of using creams to soften it, since this treatment must be kept up lest the skin cracks again from neglect. I feel the writer wanting us to think about resilience as a theme; and in other cases she goes further and calls us to ponder the relationship between hunter and prey.
Whilst many poems are bound up in ancient traditions and mythology, others take us right to the heart of contemporary life, perhaps none more so than ‘Persephone Uncovered’ which has the dedication for Gisele Pelicot. I’ve been waiting to read a poem about this topic ever since the extraordinary court case in France which revealed the horror of multiple rapes committed whilst Madame Pelicot was drugged and unaware. In this poem Hope attempts to re-imagine the story and draws comparisons with the legend of Persephone who was abducted and abused. In Hope’s poem “Hade’s phone was hacked / The tabloids knew a good story.” Perhaps she is drawing attention to the fact that some stories persist and repeat themselves down the centuries, like a bad dream.
In the poem ‘Split’, the poet uses palindrome or mirror-structure to good effect. She invites us into a situation where “one day your skin won’t fit…you repack your life. Fold it down.” This conveys the way we can sometimes be forced to face reality and adapt when circumstances change. And in ‘Midsummer’, the poet takes the opportunity to remind us that when good things happen we should enjoy them, be in the moment, since change will come again just like the seasons.
We must not rue
those days untamed. Instead, these days, this time –
fleeting, perhaps for now revel in your indecision.
This, the in-between time, which holds an even keel.
Just stop. Hold breath – take stock – this moment
all too short. Now exhale.
Hope makes good use of a variety of forms including the sonnet. I enjoyed ‘In the Wheatfield’ with its evocative line “the church is distracted by the sound / of its own bells.” I also liked ‘Birmingham Moon’ with its modern references to “the Balti Belt…Bhangra drums…the curve of Perspex.”
If poems about phases of the moon, ghosts, trees, secrets, witches, the seasons, and our relationship with them are to your taste then this collection will certainly suit you. It is possible to follow the poems deeply into dark and troubled places, to embrace “the roots of sleeping trees” and to immerse yourself in a kind of underworld. You can live for a while with the crow, the jackdaw, the fox, the mole, even “the stench of your own death”. It’s also fair to say that it’s possible to be somewhat overwhelmed by such a focus on what lurks in the soil beneath our feet, in the sap of trees and in the unspoken meaning of the calls of animals. But there is no doubt that death, decay and renewal are themes worth writing about, even themes which can speak to us in our important search for that which “breathes new life into you”. Hope has a talent for writing in this genre and, as she puts it in the title poem ‘Wild Boar’, she seems to be sensitive to and moved by an “innate residual glow / an inner sense that others cannot reach”.
Feb 17 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Jenny Hope
Poetry review – WILD BOAR: Pat Edwards explores the world conjured and vividly conveyed by Jenny Hope’s poems
Wild Boar
Jenny Hope
V. Press
ISBN 978-1-7394122-6-5
£11.99
Flicking through this collection, you cannot miss the fact that titles make numerous references to the natural world, its mysteries and magic. Hope writes with a green pen and considers our precious but sometimes dwindling and changing environment. She often personifies trees and animals in order to intensify the reader’s experience and she takes every opportunity to offer connection and to make us share her wonderment. The language is unflinching, raw, and moving as she journeys through the seasons, linking the changes and evolution to those often felt by women as they navigate their lives.
The bear of the opening poem “stirs, stretches, shits, then saunters to open ground.” The woman “wants his flesh pressed against her.” Inevitably, “he runs a claw along her form, opens skin / exposes those secrets hidden from eyes and feeds them.” Then the bear vanishes. There is a familiarity about this pattern of events, with the the woman surviving a wound but left to get on in “her new skin”. Here we sense the cyclical coming and going of all that emerges from the depths of winter as renewal comes with each spring. This poem sets the scene and introduces us to the idea of skin, how it can be shed, re-grown and adapted to the conditions.
Of course, skin conjures up other thoughts such as a barrier, protection, animals, nakedness. It reminds us of the fragility but also the strength of this amazing multi-layered human organ. Some of the poems which mention it do so in terms of its imperfections but also talk of “skin taken, moulded into gloves” or of “skin / flailed from your flesh…stretched taut and hung within a frame.” Another poem considers the tough skin on our heels but questions the wisdom of using creams to soften it, since this treatment must be kept up lest the skin cracks again from neglect. I feel the writer wanting us to think about resilience as a theme; and in other cases she goes further and calls us to ponder the relationship between hunter and prey.
Whilst many poems are bound up in ancient traditions and mythology, others take us right to the heart of contemporary life, perhaps none more so than ‘Persephone Uncovered’ which has the dedication for Gisele Pelicot. I’ve been waiting to read a poem about this topic ever since the extraordinary court case in France which revealed the horror of multiple rapes committed whilst Madame Pelicot was drugged and unaware. In this poem Hope attempts to re-imagine the story and draws comparisons with the legend of Persephone who was abducted and abused. In Hope’s poem “Hade’s phone was hacked / The tabloids knew a good story.” Perhaps she is drawing attention to the fact that some stories persist and repeat themselves down the centuries, like a bad dream.
In the poem ‘Split’, the poet uses palindrome or mirror-structure to good effect. She invites us into a situation where “one day your skin won’t fit…you repack your life. Fold it down.” This conveys the way we can sometimes be forced to face reality and adapt when circumstances change. And in ‘Midsummer’, the poet takes the opportunity to remind us that when good things happen we should enjoy them, be in the moment, since change will come again just like the seasons.
We must not rue
those days untamed. Instead, these days, this time –
fleeting, perhaps for now revel in your indecision.
This, the in-between time, which holds an even keel.
Just stop. Hold breath – take stock – this moment
all too short. Now exhale.
Hope makes good use of a variety of forms including the sonnet. I enjoyed ‘In the Wheatfield’ with its evocative line “the church is distracted by the sound / of its own bells.” I also liked ‘Birmingham Moon’ with its modern references to “the Balti Belt…Bhangra drums…the curve of Perspex.”
If poems about phases of the moon, ghosts, trees, secrets, witches, the seasons, and our relationship with them are to your taste then this collection will certainly suit you. It is possible to follow the poems deeply into dark and troubled places, to embrace “the roots of sleeping trees” and to immerse yourself in a kind of underworld. You can live for a while with the crow, the jackdaw, the fox, the mole, even “the stench of your own death”. It’s also fair to say that it’s possible to be somewhat overwhelmed by such a focus on what lurks in the soil beneath our feet, in the sap of trees and in the unspoken meaning of the calls of animals. But there is no doubt that death, decay and renewal are themes worth writing about, even themes which can speak to us in our important search for that which “breathes new life into you”. Hope has a talent for writing in this genre and, as she puts it in the title poem ‘Wild Boar’, she seems to be sensitive to and moved by an “innate residual glow / an inner sense that others cannot reach”.