Anna Woodford: Party Piece The Poetry Business 2009
I think the one line that best sums up Anna Woodford’s intentions in her pamphlet Party Piece comes at the end of her poem ‘Taking in the Washing’. Here she tells us ‘‘I cling to our line’s unbrokenness: it extends into our future and past, at the far end Gran is dollypegging Dad’s nappies.’’ She is seeking therefore in these poems to maintain a familial continuity between herself and her grandparents. Interestingly, the focus is almost exclusively on the men of the family. Mother and grandmother are marginalised to the odd line and one rather disparaging poem in which the narrator in a somewhat judgemental tone examines the role reversal between mother and daughter.
The men however are celebrated for being hard working and practical. Grandfather was a miner ‘‘solid, dependable’’, father is comfortable ‘‘at home painting the hall.’’ and her partner returns from B and Q ‘‘head full of wiring.’’ I feel Woodford admires them because they provide security for their families, a virtue that seems old fashioned today. Her language is colloquial as befits her subjects. She often describes the men by their actions, for example father buys her a desk as an unspoken sign of love. But where necessary she will use a striking image to make a point. The poem ‘Blackie Boy Roundabout’ becomes an elegy for men like her grandfather whose colliery and community were wiped out by the 80s pit closures. Thus the eponymous roundabout is described as ‘‘a stone wreath laid to rest in the rush hour.’’
The most joyous poems for me were where Woodford writes openly about a satisfying romantic relationship ‘‘getting better with age.’’ Humour is employed effectively throughout the collection and comes into its own here; from the saucy post card imagery of ‘Taking in the Washing’ where ‘‘next to your boxers, my bra is undone.’’ to the delightful ‘Birdhouse’ which wittily uses the extended metaphor of a caged bird scaling ‘‘the heights of an aviary.’’ to evoke the female orgasm.
To her credit Woodford in other poems, revisits a past that is not so quite so rosy thereby giving the collection balance. A vicious teacher is recalled and so is a youthful abortion. But there is no sense of self-pity or bitterness in these poems, more a feeling of reconciliation with the past, a tone which chimes with the work focusing on family. A few poems bring us up to date by dealing with what appears to be a more first-hand experience of motherhood, again adding to the sense of continuity felt throughout the work.
Given that these poems create a family history, I did wonder why ‘The Tree’ and ‘The Runaway Piano’ were included, because fine poems as they are, they do not seem to fit thematically with the work as a whole. Nevertheless it is refreshing to read an optimistic poet writing positively about her past.
Fiona Sinclair
