Poetry review – A LITTLE BRIDGE: Jennifer Johnson appreciates Alex Josephy’s poetic perspectives on bridges as connections and as ways of getting past obstacles
A Little Bridge
Alex Josephy
Pindrop Press
ISBN 978-1-7384059-7-8
100 pp. £12.00
Alex Josephy has worked in the UK as a teacher, university lecturer and an NHS education advisor and currently has homes in both East Sussex and Italy. Her previous publications include two books and two pamphlets with Again Behold the Stars winning a pamphlet award for Cinnamon Press in 2023. She has also won, with individual poems, both the Battered Moons and McLellan prizes.
The title poem, ‘A Little Bridge’, is set up by two apposite quotations, the first by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani – “The poem is a bridge, extending across time and encompassing all horizons” – and the second by Ocean Vuong who sees the poem as “a bridge made of language”. As Josephy travels between the UK and Italy and is fluent in both languages a kind of bridge has been made by her life. The collection is made up of four sections, the first one being Passerella, the name of an Italian footbridge. The title poem in this section introduces the passerella to English speaking readers and the following lines give the context for the collection’s title.
Temporary, a passerella weighs the passing
of a footstep, where every pace is a little bridge.
Little by little, it could fall into the dried-out ditch
It is as if the footbridge remembers all the people who have ever crossed it. Like the passerella they exist only for a time. Both the people and bridge decay “little by little”. Associative connections such as this make the poem memorable.
The second shorter section is called ‘A London Bridge’. The first poem ‘Fern’ begins with thoughts about a fern in London but in the following five stanzas the poet is thinking about Italy, the other end of her bridge of consciousness.
In Italy, in Pianello olive grove,
Ugo might be halfway up a ladder,
wielding his saw-toothed knife,
a dusty cellphone in the pocket
of his waistcoat, singing
while he prunes.
Ugo’s life seems fuller of vitality than the one being experienced in the London office with its “half-uncurled” fern, but his life is made more dangerous by his working “halfway up a ladder” with his “saw-toothed knife”. A neat connection is made at the end of the poem describing the fern “filter the light/all the way from emerald to olive”.
Another poem which suggests danger as part of communication is ‘Roadside’ in the third section ‘Easement’. This legal term often refers to a right of way. Such rights of way connect different localities which is true too of many of Josephy’s poems. ‘Roadside’ refers to a planting easement which is a verge. The poem begins
Our country is verge; a borderland roughly mown
then left to lawlessness.
The “dazed travellers” who find themselves there engage in “music, murder, love-making. Like anywhere.” There is communication among them but their “flung cans” and “murder” show the dangers lurking behind their vitality. The casual comment “Like anywhere” shows this is true for all peoples.
Naming is a theme in this collection. The poem ‘Naming is next to knowing’ explores this. Naming in language theory is complex with many facets. The one relevant to this poem is that of folk taxonomy in which a name for something is culturally determined. The sounds of Italian words in this poem have a specifically Italian flavour that makes Italians experience things slightly differently to English-speaking people. To make things easier for the reader an English translation follows some of the less obvious Italian words while also emphasising the difference between the two languages. Take, for example, “orniello, flowering ash”. Elsewhere you can tell what the Italian means from its context such as in “where frutstone slides its dry green scales”.
Interestingly, another naming poem can be found in the third section ‘Easement’. The title of this poem is ‘Robert Hooke considers his discovery’. Interestingly, Hooke’s naming in this poem does not follow scientific rules but is very human. He tries to find a name for what he initially called the “bittles” he found under the microscope. After having various ideas, the poem concludes
I sighed. Oh, these smallest purses,
rich beyond all expectation,
true as the store-chambers of bees
or music in the silence of a nunnery.
I’ll call them Cells.
The use of the beehive image where honey can be stored and the “music” in the nunnery possibly adds a feeling of vitality Hooke had when he thought of the name “cells”, the organised “store-chambers” found in both beehive and nunnery. Interestingly, this associative germination of the word “cells” has spawned the science of cytology.
A non-human form of communication, one which takes place between birds, is imaginatively portrayed in the very funny poem ‘An Ornithophony’. Take the following lines
What did you singsing?
did you utter h?, h?
coohoo-coohoo
a marriage
of oiseaux
tx?o tx?o coo
bisous bisous
a choo choo fearhering?
This skilful poem makes use of birdsong onomatopoeia and relevant sounds in various languages. With its concentration on unusual sounds, it must make an enjoyable and thought-provoking performance.
The book’s final section is ‘Portals’. The poem ‘Rites’ begins
She asked for no family plot,
just to become part
of the hill they could see
from their kitchen,
under the seven pines,
their names carved there
when she and Dad
first came to the village.
The hill, so important to the daughter due to her father’s and her names being “carved there”, is her desired realm but the “five bar gate”, possibly a kind of portal, is covered by “barbed wire” which must be unlawfully crossed. The poem ends “the trespass/that made the place their own”. This is somewhere the living are not supposed to go but a kind of bridge is made between two realms.
The bridges in the collection are of different types but most importantly the poems are made by an associative language that links reader and poet. I would recommend this book for its thought-provoking perspectives created by a bilingual poet who communicates in an engaging and memorable way.
Oct 20 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Alex Josephy
Poetry review – A LITTLE BRIDGE: Jennifer Johnson appreciates Alex Josephy’s poetic perspectives on bridges as connections and as ways of getting past obstacles
A Little Bridge
Alex Josephy
Pindrop Press
ISBN 978-1-7384059-7-8
100 pp. £12.00
Alex Josephy has worked in the UK as a teacher, university lecturer and an NHS education advisor and currently has homes in both East Sussex and Italy. Her previous publications include two books and two pamphlets with Again Behold the Stars winning a pamphlet award for Cinnamon Press in 2023. She has also won, with individual poems, both the Battered Moons and McLellan prizes.
The title poem, ‘A Little Bridge’, is set up by two apposite quotations, the first by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani – “The poem is a bridge, extending across time and encompassing all horizons” – and the second by Ocean Vuong who sees the poem as “a bridge made of language”. As Josephy travels between the UK and Italy and is fluent in both languages a kind of bridge has been made by her life. The collection is made up of four sections, the first one being Passerella, the name of an Italian footbridge. The title poem in this section introduces the passerella to English speaking readers and the following lines give the context for the collection’s title.
Temporary, a passerella weighs the passing
of a footstep, where every pace is a little bridge.
Little by little, it could fall into the dried-out ditch
It is as if the footbridge remembers all the people who have ever crossed it. Like the passerella they exist only for a time. Both the people and bridge decay “little by little”. Associative connections such as this make the poem memorable.
The second shorter section is called ‘A London Bridge’. The first poem ‘Fern’ begins with thoughts about a fern in London but in the following five stanzas the poet is thinking about Italy, the other end of her bridge of consciousness.
In Italy, in Pianello olive grove,
Ugo might be halfway up a ladder,
wielding his saw-toothed knife,
a dusty cellphone in the pocket
of his waistcoat, singing
while he prunes.
Ugo’s life seems fuller of vitality than the one being experienced in the London office with its “half-uncurled” fern, but his life is made more dangerous by his working “halfway up a ladder” with his “saw-toothed knife”. A neat connection is made at the end of the poem describing the fern “filter the light/all the way from emerald to olive”.
Another poem which suggests danger as part of communication is ‘Roadside’ in the third section ‘Easement’. This legal term often refers to a right of way. Such rights of way connect different localities which is true too of many of Josephy’s poems. ‘Roadside’ refers to a planting easement which is a verge. The poem begins
Our country is verge; a borderland roughly mown
then left to lawlessness.
The “dazed travellers” who find themselves there engage in “music, murder, love-making. Like anywhere.” There is communication among them but their “flung cans” and “murder” show the dangers lurking behind their vitality. The casual comment “Like anywhere” shows this is true for all peoples.
Naming is a theme in this collection. The poem ‘Naming is next to knowing’ explores this. Naming in language theory is complex with many facets. The one relevant to this poem is that of folk taxonomy in which a name for something is culturally determined. The sounds of Italian words in this poem have a specifically Italian flavour that makes Italians experience things slightly differently to English-speaking people. To make things easier for the reader an English translation follows some of the less obvious Italian words while also emphasising the difference between the two languages. Take, for example, “orniello, flowering ash”. Elsewhere you can tell what the Italian means from its context such as in “where frutstone slides its dry green scales”.
Interestingly, another naming poem can be found in the third section ‘Easement’. The title of this poem is ‘Robert Hooke considers his discovery’. Interestingly, Hooke’s naming in this poem does not follow scientific rules but is very human. He tries to find a name for what he initially called the “bittles” he found under the microscope. After having various ideas, the poem concludes
I sighed. Oh, these smallest purses,
rich beyond all expectation,
true as the store-chambers of bees
or music in the silence of a nunnery.
I’ll call them Cells.
The use of the beehive image where honey can be stored and the “music” in the nunnery possibly adds a feeling of vitality Hooke had when he thought of the name “cells”, the organised “store-chambers” found in both beehive and nunnery. Interestingly, this associative germination of the word “cells” has spawned the science of cytology.
A non-human form of communication, one which takes place between birds, is imaginatively portrayed in the very funny poem ‘An Ornithophony’. Take the following lines
What did you singsing?
did you utter h?, h?
coohoo-coohoo
a marriage
of oiseaux
tx?o tx?o coo
bisous bisous
a choo choo fearhering?
This skilful poem makes use of birdsong onomatopoeia and relevant sounds in various languages. With its concentration on unusual sounds, it must make an enjoyable and thought-provoking performance.
The book’s final section is ‘Portals’. The poem ‘Rites’ begins
She asked for no family plot,
just to become part
of the hill they could see
from their kitchen,
under the seven pines,
their names carved there
when she and Dad
first came to the village.
The hill, so important to the daughter due to her father’s and her names being “carved there”, is her desired realm but the “five bar gate”, possibly a kind of portal, is covered by “barbed wire” which must be unlawfully crossed. The poem ends “the trespass/that made the place their own”. This is somewhere the living are not supposed to go but a kind of bridge is made between two realms.
The bridges in the collection are of different types but most importantly the poems are made by an associative language that links reader and poet. I would recommend this book for its thought-provoking perspectives created by a bilingual poet who communicates in an engaging and memorable way.