Originally from Belfast, Johnston worked as a lawyer and journalist in London, and published a novel for young adults and a well-reviewed thriller for adults under her married name of Rosemary Furber. Her first poetry collection, Sweet Seventeens (Lapwing 2010), contained short poems, all of which were seventeen syllables long, and each verse in this second short collection also has seventeen syllables.
Though the reason for the syllabic dictate is unclear, the odd, sighing, contemplative rhythm it creates in the reading is real and effective. Moment by still, starry moment, the poem moves through an encounter with ‘Orion’, the new lover. I am reminded of the penchant for deifying and mythologizing the lover which I constantly come across in women’s poetry of the twenties and thirties, and today in my own work; a bit embarrassing, unless it can be read as a version of the Virgin-Marying (and thereby dehumanising) of women in the poetry of men? In the case of this particular hero, ‘The Pleiades/shimmer in his breath’ and ‘Lightning in/His touch/Sends heaven through me to earth.’ My idea of reverse-pedestalling is backed up by the earthy sensuality displayed at surprising instances by the very human speaker, who ‘searches [her] lower/Lip for/Vestiges of his flavour.’
Unlike the passive godesses aforementioned this hero has plenty of agency, and is constantly being drawn away by his cosmic hunt, leaving the speaker wearily bereft.
Though the metaphors get confused at times, there are some really beautiful lines, as when she ‘feel[s]/His absence close’ around her, to be worn ‘Like an undertaker’s coat.’ In the end the blame is left, like a fresh carcass, on the doorstep of ‘the gods’, the most sadistic of whom is Love herself – first by him, and then, bitterly and finally, by her.
www.rosemaryfurber.com
Though the reason for the syllabic dictate is unclear, the odd, sighing, contemplative rhythm it creates in the reading is real and effective. Moment by still, starry moment, the poem moves through an encounter with ‘Orion’, the new lover. I am reminded of the penchant for deifying and mythologizing the lover which I constantly come across in women’s poetry of the twenties and thirties, and today in my own work; a bit embarrassing, unless it can be read as a version of the Virgin-Marying (and thereby dehumanising) of women in the poetry of men? In the case of this particular hero, ‘The Pleiades/shimmer in his breath’ and ‘Lightning in/His touch/Sends heaven through me to earth.’ My idea of reverse-pedestalling is backed up by the earthy sensuality displayed at surprising instances by the very human speaker, who ‘searches [her] lower/Lip for/Vestiges of his flavour.’
Unlike the passive godesses aforementioned this hero has plenty of agency, and is constantly being drawn away by his cosmic hunt, leaving the speaker wearily bereft.
Though the metaphors get confused at times, there are some really beautiful lines, as when she ‘feel[s]/His absence close’ around her, to be worn ‘Like an undertaker’s coat.’ In the end the blame is left, like a fresh carcass, on the doorstep of ‘the gods’, the most sadistic of whom is Love herself – first by him, and then, bitterly and finally, by her.
www.rosemaryfurber.com
RSS Feed