In Girl, Rebecca Goss considers the emotional and physical connections women make to the world around them. The poems interrogate and celebrate female identity and experience, and the dynamics of family and friendship. From a woman struck by lightning to a baby who understands shadows, Goss navigates the real and the imagined with equal flair. At the heart of the collection is a distinctive, sensual series of poems responding to the work of the artist Alison Watt: the result is a fearless exploration of the female body and female desire.
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[First, it split a tree / Then tripped across a barbed wire fence / as my mother watched, thrilled LIGHTNING]***
[Carcanet, 8 July 2019, 80 pages, ebook, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs]
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I'd never heard of or read the poet before. I really enjoyed every poem in this collection. The poems explore similar themes of female identity and experience. What impressed me was the variety of ways the themes are explored across such a diverse and wide range of poems. I particularly enjoyed the sensual poems exploring the female body and desire inspired by Alison Watt. The poems in Girl have rich, vivid language and powerful imagery.