Poetry review – LANDSCAPE WITH MINES: Peter Ualrig Kennedy is moved by the strength and immediacy of Anna Bowles’ poetry in this impressive pamphlet.
Landscape with Mines
Anna Bowles
Mica Press
ISBN 978-1-869848-46-0
28pp £ 9.00
This is a truly awe-inspiring collection of poems by Anna Bowles, a British humanitarian volunteer in Ukraine. The first poem in the pamphlet is ‘February the Thirty-Seventh’.
My Masters degree and I
knew Russia would never really invade.
Not like this.
A bravura start. The poet inhabits two personas: Intellect and Emotion. Neither of these personas could believe what was coming. Russia attacks an independent country; the invasion of Ukraine is a brutal awakening.
In March, it’s still February
as the map crackles and shrinks,
blackens towards Kiev.
Bowles’ poetry is emotional and expressive. “You scream into a towel.” As the tragedy unfolds, small details force us to understand the reality. “Your flatmate won’t sleep near glass.” In the poem ‘Translating Mariupol Diaries’ words are a vivid scream, words that speak the truth of the bombardment, so shockingly of the moment that they cannot be bettered. It is a real challenge to critique this extraordinary poem.
We shouldn’t have to reduce our experience
to One Thousand Easiest English Words!
Corpses smell rotten ptomainic.
second-hand screams
jam my throat
atrocity tears at synapse
until I cram it, seeping blood
into a rational package of English.
‘The Photographer’is a poem that speaks for itself, “as you crouch to log each atrocity.” The opening line is a snapshot of an obscenity in a once peaceful setting: “In a suburban park, the mass graves / are pegged with forensic bunting.” And the bleak ending –
There is no god. There is your precision.
All these poems, expressed in free-wheeling free verse, have a language terse enough to make you know you are reading an accurate rendition of what is happening to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. ‘Night Train to Zaporizhzhia’ is a picture of the poet sharing a night train coupe with Grandma Olga and two soldiers, characterised as Butt and Rifle. “I smile my foreigner smile, excusing myself.” It is an uneasy companionship, encapsulated in the last two lines:
Rifle’s mate never speaks.
Crewcut. Haunted look. Beware.
In the title poem ‘Landscape with Mines’ the poet is precise and vivid: “In Kharkiv, the fields have teeth.” She speaks of a funeral, and records the “land’s heave of grief and its terrible patience.” The poet asks “Consider forgiveness.” But the ending is accusatory – “The Russians lay mines / shaped like toys, like petals, like butterflies.” There is nothing dewy-eyed about Anna Bowles’ poems in this pamphlet; her words are clearcut and unambiguous, but also expressive in their baleful imagery. From ‘Aid Drop’…
Come back! We’ll evacuate you, mother! To
the harassed daughter, the overcrowded hostel …
As well ask the tree to run from its roots, the rubble
to phone its children. Hope is no longer of interest.
The skilful poems in Anna Bowles’ pamphlet bear witness to the horrors of a war visited by a powerful aggressor on the people of a sovereign country. These are poems to read and read again. And we can close with a quote from Bowles’ list of acknowledgements: “My huge thanks to Les Bell for pulling Landscape with Mines out of his submission pile and not only publishing it, but choosing to do so on an expedited schedule because of the importance of the subject matter. I feel honoured by this level of commitment to my work.” Yes, well done Mica Press and well done Anna Bowles.
Slava Ukraini!
Feb 4 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Anna Bowles
Poetry review – LANDSCAPE WITH MINES: Peter Ualrig Kennedy is moved by the strength and immediacy of Anna Bowles’ poetry in this impressive pamphlet.
Landscape with Mines
Anna Bowles
Mica Press
ISBN 978-1-869848-46-0
28pp £ 9.00
This is a truly awe-inspiring collection of poems by Anna Bowles, a British humanitarian volunteer in Ukraine. The first poem in the pamphlet is ‘February the Thirty-Seventh’.
My Masters degree and I
knew Russia would never really invade.
Not like this.
A bravura start. The poet inhabits two personas: Intellect and Emotion. Neither of these personas could believe what was coming. Russia attacks an independent country; the invasion of Ukraine is a brutal awakening.
In March, it’s still February
as the map crackles and shrinks,
blackens towards Kiev.
Bowles’ poetry is emotional and expressive. “You scream into a towel.” As the tragedy unfolds, small details force us to understand the reality. “Your flatmate won’t sleep near glass.” In the poem ‘Translating Mariupol Diaries’ words are a vivid scream, words that speak the truth of the bombardment, so shockingly of the moment that they cannot be bettered. It is a real challenge to critique this extraordinary poem.
We shouldn’t have to reduce our experience
to One Thousand Easiest English Words!
Corpses smell rotten ptomainic.
second-hand screams
jam my throat
atrocity tears at synapse
until I cram it, seeping blood
into a rational package of English.
‘The Photographer’is a poem that speaks for itself, “as you crouch to log each atrocity.” The opening line is a snapshot of an obscenity in a once peaceful setting: “In a suburban park, the mass graves / are pegged with forensic bunting.” And the bleak ending –
There is no god. There is your precision.
All these poems, expressed in free-wheeling free verse, have a language terse enough to make you know you are reading an accurate rendition of what is happening to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. ‘Night Train to Zaporizhzhia’ is a picture of the poet sharing a night train coupe with Grandma Olga and two soldiers, characterised as Butt and Rifle. “I smile my foreigner smile, excusing myself.” It is an uneasy companionship, encapsulated in the last two lines:
Rifle’s mate never speaks.
Crewcut. Haunted look. Beware.
In the title poem ‘Landscape with Mines’ the poet is precise and vivid: “In Kharkiv, the fields have teeth.” She speaks of a funeral, and records the “land’s heave of grief and its terrible patience.” The poet asks “Consider forgiveness.” But the ending is accusatory – “The Russians lay mines / shaped like toys, like petals, like butterflies.” There is nothing dewy-eyed about Anna Bowles’ poems in this pamphlet; her words are clearcut and unambiguous, but also expressive in their baleful imagery. From ‘Aid Drop’…
Come back! We’ll evacuate you, mother! To
the harassed daughter, the overcrowded hostel …
As well ask the tree to run from its roots, the rubble
to phone its children. Hope is no longer of interest.
The skilful poems in Anna Bowles’ pamphlet bear witness to the horrors of a war visited by a powerful aggressor on the people of a sovereign country. These are poems to read and read again. And we can close with a quote from Bowles’ list of acknowledgements: “My huge thanks to Les Bell for pulling Landscape with Mines out of his submission pile and not only publishing it, but choosing to do so on an expedited schedule because of the importance of the subject matter. I feel honoured by this level of commitment to my work.” Yes, well done Mica Press and well done Anna Bowles.
Slava Ukraini!