Poetry review – MULTUM IN PARVO: Alex Josephy is impressed by the range and richness of the material from which Jane Weir crafts her poems
Multum in Parvo
Jane Weir
Templar Poetry
ISBN: 978-1-911132-73-8
45 pages £7.50
Multum in Parvo, Jane Weir’s sixth (‘short’) collection, contains just forty-five pages of poetry. And yet the book has a spacious feel. Many of the poems are pared-back, avoiding over-explanation, yet overall they encompass an impressively wide range of reference. Weir’s work, as in her other collections, is informed and enriched by the arts: literature, visual arts, film, and Weir’s other passion, textiles. Multum in Parvo – ‘much in little’ – is a fitting title.
It is as if the poet walks always in the company of these influences. Early in the collection, for example, the film (and play) A Taste of Honey stands for the poet’s own youthful experience, though not everyone (and probably not her mother) will understand: ‘you didn’t get all the fuss,/ realise that was us.’
The poems are alive with people – friends, family, people growing older, looking forward and back in time. Grandchild Sophie is vividly present in several poems. In “Sophie and the blueberries”, cleverly reminiscent of Ted Hughes’ “Full Moon and LIttle Freida”, she is entranced by cooking the berries:
And the tiny black seeds
fascinate as one by one
you hone in.
Ageing and its terrors – especially a fear of enclosure, or of losing agency – are mitigated by moments of intense observation, as in “Woman and Dog” (with its allusion to Chekhov) in which the narrator delights in the dog’s movements: ‘I watch my poodle scribbling/ amongst willow herb’ and later:
…thinking at night
has sprung
like dragon teeth
the horror –
me as anchorite.
“Honey Flow’’ is a tender evocation of an old woman losing her understanding, eventually learning of a friend or relative’s death:
Afterwards
you’re like the snail
dying in its shell,
you keep on touching,
the whorl on the compost
at peace with geranium.
I was moved too by “Tarot’’, where a woman who falls in the road is ‘soaring through the air/ Chagall in slow motion’. The fall is real, a bus almost runs her over, but she is ‘fluttering like your prescriptions’; Weir’s light tone adds a redeeming sense of imagination, fired by art.
The poems are urbane, cultured, but also intimate, with a questioning tone that acknowledges, even welcomes uncertainties. In “Heron” this is memorably conveyed in an image of stasis within movement.
It surprises me, your certainty
definite as a heron
with the river rushing round your ankles.
As in other Weir collections, textiles and design are woven (ha!) into the imagery of almost all the poems. There is a recurring image of a woman ‘unravelling’, falling down stairs while carrying a ‘Persian rug.’ In another poem, a face is ‘threadbare’. And perhaps only a visual artist would think to describe the colour of a ‘primitive… high backed chair’ as ‘imp black.’
Interestingly, a sequence about the designs of Wiliam Morris and his student John Henry Dearle is particularly animated, although what is described is at a remove from ‘real life’. The poems celebrate representations of nature that don’t aim to be pretty, or even comfortable. A Dearle squirrel design shows a ‘flawed grapevine’ and the squirrels with their ‘flared tails’ are ‘little uglies’, ‘not cute/ yet in spirit – right.’ This is a kind of ekphrasis, through which Weir seems determined to get her readers to see the natural word with no romantic filter.
Having said this, there are beautiful, surprising images of animals – a bantam, a mare, and, once again curiously honest, or perhaps honestly curious, a dead mouse:
…a black beetle scuttles
out of your balding belly split.
I wonder where it’s taken you.
The unanswered question lingers. Weir is adept at leaving space for the reader’s imagination.
Questioning and curious though it is, the collection contains anger too. One poem protests at the ‘cancelling’ of John Updike. There are bitter reflections on the aftermath of war in Greece, and in “True Crime”, there is a vilage whose inhabitants have been poisoned by lead, presumably used in the Pennine lead industry, insult being added to injury by a lady in the Dower House who is offended by the sight of laundry on a washing line.
In places, uncertainty tips over into unease. Horror or dismay and surreal humour tangle together. Is it a suicide or a murder discovered in a bathtub (referencing Bonnard’s painting)? Moving further toward the surreal, the poet inhabits a Piero della Francesca nativity scene, which segues into an aquarium, a flood, a shipwreck, and ends with the baby Jesus ‘flipped/ wavering like a beetle on straw’. The painters seem to be present as presiding spirits, lifting real events onto another level, encouraging flights of fantasy.
I very much enjoyed the final sequence based on counting magpies. A family story is told in tiny glimpses, like elements in a magpie’s hoard. Especially tender is “Six”, a subtle goodbye to (I think) the narrator’s mother:
I admire the ripple of your
rose gold wedding ring.
Cut wide, warm to touch
worthy of a tomb.
Yor lips say, Love, take it now…
There are poems here of daring insight and emotional depth. For admirers of Jane Weir’s poetry, this must be a welcome arrival, and for anyone who has yet to enjoy her work, an exciting addition to the book shelf.
Apr 2 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Jane Weir
Poetry review – MULTUM IN PARVO: Alex Josephy is impressed by the range and richness of the material from which Jane Weir crafts her poems
Multum in Parvo
Jane Weir
Templar Poetry
ISBN: 978-1-911132-73-8
45 pages £7.50
Multum in Parvo, Jane Weir’s sixth (‘short’) collection, contains just forty-five pages of poetry. And yet the book has a spacious feel. Many of the poems are pared-back, avoiding over-explanation, yet overall they encompass an impressively wide range of reference. Weir’s work, as in her other collections, is informed and enriched by the arts: literature, visual arts, film, and Weir’s other passion, textiles. Multum in Parvo – ‘much in little’ – is a fitting title.
It is as if the poet walks always in the company of these influences. Early in the collection, for example, the film (and play) A Taste of Honey stands for the poet’s own youthful experience, though not everyone (and probably not her mother) will understand: ‘you didn’t get all the fuss,/ realise that was us.’
The poems are alive with people – friends, family, people growing older, looking forward and back in time. Grandchild Sophie is vividly present in several poems. In “Sophie and the blueberries”, cleverly reminiscent of Ted Hughes’ “Full Moon and LIttle Freida”, she is entranced by cooking the berries:
And the tiny black seeds
fascinate as one by one
you hone in.
Ageing and its terrors – especially a fear of enclosure, or of losing agency – are mitigated by moments of intense observation, as in “Woman and Dog” (with its allusion to Chekhov) in which the narrator delights in the dog’s movements: ‘I watch my poodle scribbling/ amongst willow herb’ and later:
…thinking at night
has sprung
like dragon teeth
the horror –
me as anchorite.
“Honey Flow’’ is a tender evocation of an old woman losing her understanding, eventually learning of a friend or relative’s death:
Afterwards
you’re like the snail
dying in its shell,
you keep on touching,
the whorl on the compost
at peace with geranium.
I was moved too by “Tarot’’, where a woman who falls in the road is ‘soaring through the air/ Chagall in slow motion’. The fall is real, a bus almost runs her over, but she is ‘fluttering like your prescriptions’; Weir’s light tone adds a redeeming sense of imagination, fired by art.
The poems are urbane, cultured, but also intimate, with a questioning tone that acknowledges, even welcomes uncertainties. In “Heron” this is memorably conveyed in an image of stasis within movement.
It surprises me, your certainty
definite as a heron
with the river rushing round your ankles.
As in other Weir collections, textiles and design are woven (ha!) into the imagery of almost all the poems. There is a recurring image of a woman ‘unravelling’, falling down stairs while carrying a ‘Persian rug.’ In another poem, a face is ‘threadbare’. And perhaps only a visual artist would think to describe the colour of a ‘primitive… high backed chair’ as ‘imp black.’
Interestingly, a sequence about the designs of Wiliam Morris and his student John Henry Dearle is particularly animated, although what is described is at a remove from ‘real life’. The poems celebrate representations of nature that don’t aim to be pretty, or even comfortable. A Dearle squirrel design shows a ‘flawed grapevine’ and the squirrels with their ‘flared tails’ are ‘little uglies’, ‘not cute/ yet in spirit – right.’ This is a kind of ekphrasis, through which Weir seems determined to get her readers to see the natural word with no romantic filter.
Having said this, there are beautiful, surprising images of animals – a bantam, a mare, and, once again curiously honest, or perhaps honestly curious, a dead mouse:
…a black beetle scuttles
out of your balding belly split.
I wonder where it’s taken you.
The unanswered question lingers. Weir is adept at leaving space for the reader’s imagination.
Questioning and curious though it is, the collection contains anger too. One poem protests at the ‘cancelling’ of John Updike. There are bitter reflections on the aftermath of war in Greece, and in “True Crime”, there is a vilage whose inhabitants have been poisoned by lead, presumably used in the Pennine lead industry, insult being added to injury by a lady in the Dower House who is offended by the sight of laundry on a washing line.
In places, uncertainty tips over into unease. Horror or dismay and surreal humour tangle together. Is it a suicide or a murder discovered in a bathtub (referencing Bonnard’s painting)? Moving further toward the surreal, the poet inhabits a Piero della Francesca nativity scene, which segues into an aquarium, a flood, a shipwreck, and ends with the baby Jesus ‘flipped/ wavering like a beetle on straw’. The painters seem to be present as presiding spirits, lifting real events onto another level, encouraging flights of fantasy.
I very much enjoyed the final sequence based on counting magpies. A family story is told in tiny glimpses, like elements in a magpie’s hoard. Especially tender is “Six”, a subtle goodbye to (I think) the narrator’s mother:
I admire the ripple of your
rose gold wedding ring.
Cut wide, warm to touch
worthy of a tomb.
Yor lips say, Love, take it now…
There are poems here of daring insight and emotional depth. For admirers of Jane Weir’s poetry, this must be a welcome arrival, and for anyone who has yet to enjoy her work, an exciting addition to the book shelf.