{"id":1268,"date":"2008-06-07T12:49:40","date_gmt":"2008-06-07T12:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2008-06-07T12:49:40","modified_gmt":"2008-06-07T12:49:40","slug":"martina-thomsons-ferryboats-reviewed-by-ken-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/martina-thomsons-ferryboats-reviewed-by-ken-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Martina Thomson's Ferryboats – reviewed by Ken Head"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Ferryboats<\/span>

by Martina Thomson<\/span>
Hearing Eye Publications, 2008, Pamphlet Series No. 54 <\/span>www.torriano.org<\/a>
ISBN:  978-1-905082-36-0, \u00a33.00, 32pp<\/span>

Reviewed by Ken Head<\/span>

The publication reading for this volume of twenty-nine poems took place at the Torriano Meeting House in London on 9th March and until then I had never heard of Martina Thomson.  Not unusual with poets, given how little exposure they receive in the mainstream media and on the shelves of the major bookshop chains.  Without the lifeline of small presses, open mic events and, increasingly, online publication, even the best of the new would probably either never achieve publication at all or simply pass us by unnoticed, which is why series such as Hearing Eye\u2019s pamphlets, published at a good price and an impressive level of quality,  are so valuable.<\/span>

Martina Thomson was born in Berlin, of Austrian parents, came to England as a child and is now a potter living and working in London\u2019s Camden Town.  <\/span>Ferryboats<\/span> is her first published volume of poetry, although a prose work, <\/span>On Art And Therapy<\/span>, was published by Virago in 1997 (See <\/span>www.fabooks.com<\/a> for more.)

The collection begins with Glaze Test, a short poem, fourteen lines written in couplets, about the response to \u201cglaze and flame\u201d of \u201cThe contours of three brushstrokes \/ on my test piece\u201d, before moving to draw a parallel between the lines of her brush on clay and those \u201cever-shifting versions\u201d which she finds in nature, in \u201cthe line a hill draws \/ in the sky … ever-shifting versions \/ as I walk towards it \u2013 \u201d.  \u201cSo many goes\u201d, she adds, \u201cat touch \/ and demarcation\u201d, the thoughtful conclusion of an artist and a poet for whom representing reality is an infinitely varied and complex task. <\/span>

Meditative concentration on the relationship between the concrete and the imagined is a quality found throughout the collection and is used skilfully in a variety of ways.  In Silver Spoon, for example, \u201cthe small silver spoon \/ in the palm of my hand \/ my fingers across it \/ my thumb in its hollow \u2013\u201d leads to a dream of yesterday, the memory of her mother serving coffee \u201cin the blue room \/ among her friends\u201d and asking, \u201cEin Mokka?\u201d.  It is difficult not to grasp what this suggests about what was lost in the family migration from Germany all those years ago.<\/span>

\u201cYesterday dreaming\u201d is perhaps a useful shorthand for a number of the poems in this collection.  Tristanstrasse, for example, remembers her first home, the milk-cart rattling over cobblestones, \u201cthe high, clear sound of H\u00fcbner\u2019s bell\u201d, but recalls at the same time a more sinister reality, which doesn\u2019t need explaining, of \u201cblack boots … in the street \/ … the dog … poisoned\u201d.  <\/span>

In the moving Elegy for C. L. R., which is placed among the concluding poems, we read of \u201cHis fingers … \/ like the strings of an instrument, \/ when he raises them \/ the air makes music. \/ His words are agile creatures \/ that ferret out distinctions, … \/ that span distances.\u201d and remember Shakespeare\u2019s Prospero, his power to transform, undoubtedly this poet\u2019s gift also.  <\/span>


\u2022 Ken Head's poetry weblog is at <\/span>www.listeningforlight.blogspot.com<\/a> and he'll appreciate your dropping in to browse and maybe leave a comment if you're passing.<\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ferryboatsby Martina ThomsonHearing Eye Publications, 2008, Pamphlet Series No. 54 www.torriano.orgISBN:  978-1-905082-36-0, \u00a33.00, 32ppReviewed by Ken HeadThe publication reading for this volume of twenty-nine poems took place at the Torriano Meeting House in London on 9th March and until then I had never heard of Martina Thomson.  Not unusual with poets, given how little exposure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}