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Andraste's Hair
Bridging the divide between experimental, performance and traditional poetries the poems in Andraste's Hair draw on myth, memory, folksong and murder ballad. Often set in a mythical Liverpool, a city of metamorphosis and magic, grotesque and beautiful, its buildings are a backdrop for visions and apprehensions of the past.
- GenresPoetry
71 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 12, 2017
Poems from Stand, etc.
p.4 ends with "My city is wearing costume jewellery tonight -/ glittering and real", the final line of which seems somewhat gratuitous, and p.5, rather than having too many words, has too few for me. I don't get it, and I begin to distrust the poet. I could imagine the first line to mean that the top from the cathedral disappears in cloud, but does the "it" in the second line refer to the moon (initially this seems the most likely option) or the top? How does a cloud end up on the ground. I know that Hamlet suggests to Polonius that clouds can take several forms (and Polonius always agrees) but that doesn't seem to have much to do with this situation. Maybe the cathedral is a food container, or a bottle. The shape of the poem suggests oozing that breaks into 2 streams as it falls to the ground. But again, the analogy breaks down and nothing's left. The white space has an adverse effect.
The detail in "The Clock Tower" makes me want to decode the image. Why the indentation? Why "right-hand"? Were a piece of taut string tied from the point of the hour hand to the point of the minute hand, and the time was 9.25 (i.e. "from five across to nine", then as time progressed, the string (the [straight] line) would turn into a curved line, a one-sided smile (like that of a stroke victim), but using the term "right-hand" in the context of clocks (which have hands) is confusing if the lopsided smile is what's being referred to. I suspect I've lead myself a long way down a garden path.
The title poem is long only because the lines are so short - unnecessarily so. "The Fair" is over 2 pages long because, .e.g., "A man nabs the collar of the girl before she bobs beneath the stalls -" occupies 7 lines. Elsewhere in the same poem, typography is used to highlight intended poeticisms - not using CAPS and/or COLOUR but, just as garishly, spacing.
On p.31 is "There is a table in the room. It is also rough, made of oak. On it are laid the plates for dinner though the staircase that runs into the room is empty and the upstairs rooms are empty and the kitchen is empty", spread over 16 lines. It's the kind of thing that gives poetry a bad reputation amongst prose writers.
And yet, she can produce passages like "Heat battens the day/ to stone,/ seals all edges into/ a whole:/ a monument of sun." (p.32). I like "Parkland". Fragments like "Battling green oak trees fall burdened/ with ciphers,/ letters bundled to the ground/ washed from newsprint spell/ unspoken needs/ in the back street puddles" have potential that to my mind is damaged by the context and inattention to detail. Do the trees fall, or just the leaves?
The book ends with a 5 part, 15 paged piece called "A Nocturnal Opera" which contains many sections that I find confusing.
p.4 ends with "My city is wearing costume jewellery tonight -/ glittering and real", the final line of which seems somewhat gratuitous, and p.5, rather than having too many words, has too few for me. I don't get it, and I begin to distrust the poet. I could imagine the first line to mean that the top from the cathedral disappears in cloud, but does the "it" in the second line refer to the moon (initially this seems the most likely option) or the top? How does a cloud end up on the ground. I know that Hamlet suggests to Polonius that clouds can take several forms (and Polonius always agrees) but that doesn't seem to have much to do with this situation. Maybe the cathedral is a food container, or a bottle. The shape of the poem suggests oozing that breaks into 2 streams as it falls to the ground. But again, the analogy breaks down and nothing's left. The white space has an adverse effect.
The detail in "The Clock Tower" makes me want to decode the image. Why the indentation? Why "right-hand"? Were a piece of taut string tied from the point of the hour hand to the point of the minute hand, and the time was 9.25 (i.e. "from five across to nine", then as time progressed, the string (the [straight] line) would turn into a curved line, a one-sided smile (like that of a stroke victim), but using the term "right-hand" in the context of clocks (which have hands) is confusing if the lopsided smile is what's being referred to. I suspect I've lead myself a long way down a garden path.
The title poem is long only because the lines are so short - unnecessarily so. "The Fair" is over 2 pages long because, .e.g., "A man nabs the collar of the girl before she bobs beneath the stalls -" occupies 7 lines. Elsewhere in the same poem, typography is used to highlight intended poeticisms - not using CAPS and/or COLOUR but, just as garishly, spacing.
On p.31 is "There is a table in the room. It is also rough, made of oak. On it are laid the plates for dinner though the staircase that runs into the room is empty and the upstairs rooms are empty and the kitchen is empty", spread over 16 lines. It's the kind of thing that gives poetry a bad reputation amongst prose writers.
And yet, she can produce passages like "Heat battens the day/ to stone,/ seals all edges into/ a whole:/ a monument of sun." (p.32). I like "Parkland". Fragments like "Battling green oak trees fall burdened/ with ciphers,/ letters bundled to the ground/ washed from newsprint spell/ unspoken needs/ in the back street puddles" have potential that to my mind is damaged by the context and inattention to detail. Do the trees fall, or just the leaves?
The book ends with a 5 part, 15 paged piece called "A Nocturnal Opera" which contains many sections that I find confusing.
August 7, 2023
I think that this book is a really good example of my issues with poetry today... a little too inaccessible to allow the reader a path inside.
I don’t mind layered and complex work. I just draw the line when it becomes evident that a lot of it is so inaccessible as to reduce itself, despite any meaning it might have had, to nothing more than pretty words.
And they are gorgeous collections of words, but when you read them - after the initial delight, you’re left with no way to unpack any of it.
Or at least, I wasn’t left with any path.
You know when someone tells you a dream and the visuals are interesting to consider - but the meaning is just a little too personal to be universal. That’s what it felt like.
I encourage you to try this one, but it wasn’t for me.
I don’t mind layered and complex work. I just draw the line when it becomes evident that a lot of it is so inaccessible as to reduce itself, despite any meaning it might have had, to nothing more than pretty words.
And they are gorgeous collections of words, but when you read them - after the initial delight, you’re left with no way to unpack any of it.
Or at least, I wasn’t left with any path.
You know when someone tells you a dream and the visuals are interesting to consider - but the meaning is just a little too personal to be universal. That’s what it felt like.
I encourage you to try this one, but it wasn’t for me.
August 30, 2016
The poems in this collection explore a dual and often personified city – the contemporary urban environment above, and the old city below, one of history, myth, memory and magic. The pavement erupts, the ground breaks, the tarmac bites, and from these open seams the old city seeps into the night.
Another duality explored in this collection is one of the urban/natural. The man-made (motorways and lino) often juxtaposed with earth (tree, flood and furrow). Also Male/female – the city is often a man, the narrators and protagonists achingly wanton or ravaged women.
The poems here are liminal, exploring borders, fringes, small spaces where these dualities and juxtapositions overlap: these poems are transitory, transgressive.
Highlights include Roadworks, a fresh Alice of a poem in which the narrator falls through a sort of sinkhole into a world filled with ‘pretty girls with bees in their hair,’ ‘smiling boys with tattooed penises and wet hearts in jars like flowers or flames’ as well as the striking repetition in the title sequence, Andraste’s Hair: ‘she lets them burn her hair.’ Mermaid and Wolf, along with elements of other poems in this collection, foreshadow major themes in Rees’ next collection, Eliza and the Bear.
Overall, a beautiful read from a woman who is managing to hold on to the title of my favourite poet (although I do slightly prefer her second collection, which I encountered first).
Another duality explored in this collection is one of the urban/natural. The man-made (motorways and lino) often juxtaposed with earth (tree, flood and furrow). Also Male/female – the city is often a man, the narrators and protagonists achingly wanton or ravaged women.
The poems here are liminal, exploring borders, fringes, small spaces where these dualities and juxtapositions overlap: these poems are transitory, transgressive.
Highlights include Roadworks, a fresh Alice of a poem in which the narrator falls through a sort of sinkhole into a world filled with ‘pretty girls with bees in their hair,’ ‘smiling boys with tattooed penises and wet hearts in jars like flowers or flames’ as well as the striking repetition in the title sequence, Andraste’s Hair: ‘she lets them burn her hair.’ Mermaid and Wolf, along with elements of other poems in this collection, foreshadow major themes in Rees’ next collection, Eliza and the Bear.
Overall, a beautiful read from a woman who is managing to hold on to the title of my favourite poet (although I do slightly prefer her second collection, which I encountered first).
October 2, 2013
Beautiful, simple and touching
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews