Books

Review by Francis Sheppard

It is a challenge, when fifty years separate your youth from that of the writer. The sensations and perceptions of the young self have been blunted, the mind less brave. The intervening years of toil have dimmed the remembrance of how things once were.

Add to that, a huge cultural change. Tumblr gets a mention, among other digital space into which one would not dare venture. Social media is the surround to all that is experienced, the outside world burrowing relentlessly into the human heart. O Rose thou art sick…

How to conduct a love affair under such conditions? In the past it was through letter-writing, and then a two-day wait. You wrote letters, even if you lived near. For all the power of expectation, and anticipated disappointment, the intervening time was one in which the passion might be evaluated, philosophised even. While relationships might follow a predictable arc, with inevitable and painful endings, they were conducted without the risk of public exposure (the means were less available) and influenced by the group in which the friendship was first formed.

A nostalgic picture, and one that does not do justice to the ‘housemates’ who are concerned bystanders ‘shocked that you were home at 11 am when they came to check on you’ in this account of a relationships skewed by violence, in which the speaker becomes the controlled victim. The voice is of a trans woman, now inhabiting a body whose ‘softness was too much / my emotions too honest’ who has been with a partner who now experiences the ‘flickering switch of boredom’ wanting ‘a boy next’, and a world in which ‘queerness fades’ (Boyfriend Next Time). Right through the collection there is a rejection of love that is false, for the possession it implies.

The month comes and shackles your lips
you’re no longer allowed to say
whatever you want. They are in love
and therefore own a part of you.

The poem Free Trial is the stance of a nineteen-year-old, even now not taken in by the iron expectations of a relationship, already with its eye on the far future when the condition is domestic subjugation. But that relationships could be good – so far from the treatment where

…you’re asking me to leave
at 3am – you can’t sleep
with the nuisance of me. (Hands)

And possibly, the reader thinks, something better does exist, understanding ‘the boundary between torture and eroticism’ (Pervert) that allows for the feral self to emerge. Several poems use the imagery of the deer, a creature that has the speed and lightness of these poems, integrity to its nature, and beauty.

I am just a creature! Please
love me for my bones
and not the way your eyes shift
and make magic of me
in night mystery,

Welch calls their writing trauma poetry. Trauma does indeed form much of the narrative, but to me the collection went much further. The sequence transcends the tale of abuse/recovery, prevalent on the poetry scene today. To me, it was a lesson in how to be brave. It is a world with many more choices than ever confronted my generation, and those choices could be made in isolation, and the consequences similarly endured. One would hesitate to call them love poems; too much of love’s dark side is shown. While of misuse and betrayal, they are also stories of the heart’s courage in following to the bitter end.