Jutland brings together two contrasting poem sequences by 'this brilliant lyricist of human darkness' (Fiona Sampson), Advice on Wearing Animal Prints, winner of the Michael Marks Poetry Award, and Sunday Afternoons at the Gravel-pits. Like all of Selima Hill's work, both sequences chart 'extreme experience with a dazzling excess' (Deryn Rees-Jones), with startling humour and surprising combinations of homely and outlandish. Jutland poses questions about forgiveness, 'but the answers, / like Valentines, are never enough', as she writes in 'Wolverine': 'And can't he understand / I'm trying to love him but I don't know how? / And is it true forgiveness is forgiveness / only if the person first repents? / That kindness isn't kindness but self-sacrifice?' Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.
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[It's lying on the floor as good as gold / It never moves. It never even cries / It likes to simply lie there doing nothing / But visitors complain it smells of stew ADVICE ON WEARING ANIMAL PRINTS]***
(@BloodaxeBooks, 26 March 2015, 112 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I'm familiar with the poet's work from various anthologies I've read over the years but have never read a full collection of her work. This dazzled me. I enjoyed the second sequence, Sunday Afternoons at the Gravel-pits the best. These poems are quite dark at times, charting the fraught relationship between a daughter and a father who never quite seems to appreciate or accept her, who always seems so disapproving and disappointed. The poems are quite short and brutal at times, but very powerful. I could read this sequence many times over. Jutland is worth reading for this alone.
