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Learning How to Fall (Paperback)
£7.19 - Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 24 hours | |Short Description for Learning How to FallA collection of woman-centred poetry, in which the 'I' or 'she' figures in the majority of poems feel close to the author herself (without being naively confessional), and speak of experiences. The subjects of the poems are often aspects of relationships, that speak of questions that readers will recognise.
Full description- Publisher: Parthian Books
- Published: 15 September 2005
- Format: Paperback 70 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Poetry | Poetry By Individual Poets
- ISBN 13: 9781902638607 ISBN 10: 1902638603
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Reviews for Learning How to Fall
A review by Clare Maynard
This is a very rich and interesting first collection of poetry in three parts from Lynne Rees. It is very varied and abundant, the poems are perceptive and multi-layered; when writing of everyday existence, she takes us to a different place where the details are in sharp focus, as in the opening poem, ‘At Two’, concerning babies: ‘We stiffen our bodies like old bones, when you plant us in buggies, high chairs/ or slip like fish from your grasp, in the retreating tides of baths.’ Her language is very sensual and yet has a coolness which pushes the poem to the fore. In ‘Turned’ the poem opens with the sharp-sounding stanza ‘Vinegar whiff, hangnail, crush of a rusted Coke tin’. Her language exudes power again as the next line reveals,‘I have let meanness in – My mouth sifts its cold ash’. Her talent is in making sounds in the construction of words and sentences project the atmosphere. From the chilling ‘Shower Scenes’ – ‘A noise you think you hear, under the pulse of water,’ – her poems become more complex in their representation of the human psyche. ‘White’ has an ominous feeling, a clever play on the colour becoming part of the human physically – ‘it wasn’t her skin to blame. It was her blood./ She checked out all the clinics, got the best./ “I want white blood” She said at the desk.’ Her humour comes through as dark and at times farcical as in ‘Teaching a chicken to swim’ – a raw chicken in a bath of water. In Part II the very perceptive ‘Amateur’ captures the human balancing act in the psyche, opening into a more personal place, as well as the representation of the very physical, in ‘No Mans Land’, ‘Snow Queen’ and ‘Aphrodite', all focusing on her complex interaction with a male partner. The clever ‘Dermatoglyphics’ and ‘Rain’ conjure beautifully the aftermath of such intense moments in life – ‘and carved in the hollow of my throat/ the ache of your name’. The later poems in Part III have a tendency to be more playful. There is a sudden alertness, a slightly different atmosphere. This collection is full and exciting, each poem exquisitely crafted, her surreal and imaginative edge always surprising. A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. by Lynne
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