Poetry review – THE HORNED GOD: John Snelling admires the insights in this accomplished and deeply personal sequence by Bethany W. Pope
The Horned God
Bethany W. Pope
Mica Press, 2025
ISBN 978-1-869848-43-9
23pp £8
The sixteen poems in this collection are interrelated and, broadly, sequential. Although each of them can stand alone, they are more powerful and resonant for the light they cast on each other. The Horned God is closer to a single work than a collection.
The first poem, ‘Age + Distance’, looks at how the writer’s work is a product of their life history. When the history has been one of trauma the work will be like this.
You want to make something – lucid,
and startlingly bright, glimmering
like the blood-sheened proboscis
of a Jurassic mosquito, suspended
in a blob of polished amber – as though
the ancient wounding barb your flesh
cannot seem to disgorge could be redeemed
by the words you case it in.
The poem goes on to spell out details of the wounding barb and what it has done before ending,
Amber is a tree’s dried blood: poetry
is the coagulated spew of an author.
What lasts, beyond death, is ultimately
a matter of percentages.
Later, when looking at the final poem, ‘Egg’ we will find a very different perspective on what can continue beyond the writer’s life.
The back cover of the collection gives some very useful information about the title poem, ‘The Horned God’. It explains that the reference is both to a cow or deer and to a cruel, usually male, persecutor of them. It also directs our attention to Guanyin a figure of great compassion in Buddhism often depicted as genderless. It will inevitably occur to the reader that western traditions also have a horned god. There is no explicit reference to this in the collection, but the persecutory male principal has a clear link to the figure of Herne the Hunter and to The Wild Hunt. Cernunnos is a much richer and more complex symbol. If he is relevant at all it is in contrast to the destructive principle.
‘The Horned God’ tells of a repulsive seventeen-year-old boy who worked at the orphanage where Pope had been put. It describes how he would regularly kill and butcher deer. In the lines,
When I wake up, the bones in my jaw
ache with the memory of the blade
of the shovel, of what all else his hands did.
we learn that he was also sexually predatory. And the poem ends with lines that are a key to what the whole collection is trying to tell us.
We are where we’ve been, we are
What we’ve been through.
There’s nothing else to it.
The sequential nature of the collection is particularly apparent in the juxtaposition of two poems, ‘A Bill Comes Due’ and ‘A Martian Named Smith’. Both poems are about the poet’s uncle. The title, ‘A Bill Comes Due’, has a triple reference: it is the uncle’s name; it uses the requirement to make payments in a commercial context as a metaphor;, and it echoes the quote ‘The bill comes due’ from the Marvel film, ‘Doctor Strange’ in which the central issue is the way our behaviour in life has unavoidable consequences. The poem gives us a vivid picture of a flawed man of strong mind and feelings who unintentionally hurts those around him while seeking something he never seems to find. The poem ends,
And I can’t stop thinking
about what five days decaying
in the hot, hot sun did to your scent,
your eyes, what was left of your body,
before the cops finally gave up
and forced the door down.
And I can’t help but wonder
did the shape of whatever you intended
at last rise up?
‘A Martian Named Smith’ is also a title with a reference. It was the original title of Robert Heinlein’s novel, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’. The poem’s epigraph is taken from the novel and the poem describes a copy being given by Bill to the poet. The poem is a companion piece to ‘A Bill Comes Due’ and gives an even starker account of the nature of Uncle Bill. Again, we see the theme of a bill coming due in the lines,
You couldn’t afford the dignity of the grave
and nobody has offered to pay this tab for you.
He seems estranged from his kind as a Martian would be among humans.
The final poem of the collection is ‘Egg’. The egg in this poem is the poet’s son, Xeno, to whom the collection is dedicated. It is in striking contrast to the first poem, ‘Age + Distance’. Unlike poetry, “the coagulated spew of an author”, a child has its own life beyond that of anything written and creates its own future. At the same time, the poet knows the truth in the final lines of The Horned God, and is desperately aware of the importance of ensuring that where the child has been and what they have been through are things that enable the best possibilities of self-creation for that child. All of this is beautifully expressed in the ending of ‘Egg’.
My son is an egg. I brood on him
I carried him home, without stumbling.
In the photograph, my son is cradling
a representation of himself. He is my promise,
and my terror. My egg is tremulous, capacious,
easily broken. He is painting himself as I watch,
in vivid colours, preparing to break through
the shell of himself. And I’m watching him,
every moment, with my breath held.
Jun 13 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Bethany W Pope
Poetry review – THE HORNED GOD: John Snelling admires the insights in this accomplished and deeply personal sequence by Bethany W. Pope
The Horned God
Bethany W. Pope
Mica Press, 2025
ISBN 978-1-869848-43-9
23pp £8
The sixteen poems in this collection are interrelated and, broadly, sequential. Although each of them can stand alone, they are more powerful and resonant for the light they cast on each other. The Horned God is closer to a single work than a collection.
The first poem, ‘Age + Distance’, looks at how the writer’s work is a product of their life history. When the history has been one of trauma the work will be like this.
You want to make something – lucid,
and startlingly bright, glimmering
like the blood-sheened proboscis
of a Jurassic mosquito, suspended
in a blob of polished amber – as though
the ancient wounding barb your flesh
cannot seem to disgorge could be redeemed
by the words you case it in.
The poem goes on to spell out details of the wounding barb and what it has done before ending,
Amber is a tree’s dried blood: poetry
is the coagulated spew of an author.
What lasts, beyond death, is ultimately
a matter of percentages.
Later, when looking at the final poem, ‘Egg’ we will find a very different perspective on what can continue beyond the writer’s life.
The back cover of the collection gives some very useful information about the title poem, ‘The Horned God’. It explains that the reference is both to a cow or deer and to a cruel, usually male, persecutor of them. It also directs our attention to Guanyin a figure of great compassion in Buddhism often depicted as genderless. It will inevitably occur to the reader that western traditions also have a horned god. There is no explicit reference to this in the collection, but the persecutory male principal has a clear link to the figure of Herne the Hunter and to The Wild Hunt. Cernunnos is a much richer and more complex symbol. If he is relevant at all it is in contrast to the destructive principle.
‘The Horned God’ tells of a repulsive seventeen-year-old boy who worked at the orphanage where Pope had been put. It describes how he would regularly kill and butcher deer. In the lines,
When I wake up, the bones in my jaw
ache with the memory of the blade
of the shovel, of what all else his hands did.
we learn that he was also sexually predatory. And the poem ends with lines that are a key to what the whole collection is trying to tell us.
We are where we’ve been, we are
What we’ve been through.
There’s nothing else to it.
The sequential nature of the collection is particularly apparent in the juxtaposition of two poems, ‘A Bill Comes Due’ and ‘A Martian Named Smith’. Both poems are about the poet’s uncle. The title, ‘A Bill Comes Due’, has a triple reference: it is the uncle’s name; it uses the requirement to make payments in a commercial context as a metaphor;, and it echoes the quote ‘The bill comes due’ from the Marvel film, ‘Doctor Strange’ in which the central issue is the way our behaviour in life has unavoidable consequences. The poem gives us a vivid picture of a flawed man of strong mind and feelings who unintentionally hurts those around him while seeking something he never seems to find. The poem ends,
And I can’t stop thinking
about what five days decaying
in the hot, hot sun did to your scent,
your eyes, what was left of your body,
before the cops finally gave up
and forced the door down.
And I can’t help but wonder
did the shape of whatever you intended
at last rise up?
‘A Martian Named Smith’ is also a title with a reference. It was the original title of Robert Heinlein’s novel, ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’. The poem’s epigraph is taken from the novel and the poem describes a copy being given by Bill to the poet. The poem is a companion piece to ‘A Bill Comes Due’ and gives an even starker account of the nature of Uncle Bill. Again, we see the theme of a bill coming due in the lines,
You couldn’t afford the dignity of the grave
and nobody has offered to pay this tab for you.
He seems estranged from his kind as a Martian would be among humans.
The final poem of the collection is ‘Egg’. The egg in this poem is the poet’s son, Xeno, to whom the collection is dedicated. It is in striking contrast to the first poem, ‘Age + Distance’. Unlike poetry, “the coagulated spew of an author”, a child has its own life beyond that of anything written and creates its own future. At the same time, the poet knows the truth in the final lines of The Horned God, and is desperately aware of the importance of ensuring that where the child has been and what they have been through are things that enable the best possibilities of self-creation for that child. All of this is beautifully expressed in the ending of ‘Egg’.
My son is an egg. I brood on him
I carried him home, without stumbling.
In the photograph, my son is cradling
a representation of himself. He is my promise,
and my terror. My egg is tremulous, capacious,
easily broken. He is painting himself as I watch,
in vivid colours, preparing to break through
the shell of himself. And I’m watching him,
every moment, with my breath held.