{"id":13421,"date":"2017-05-02T07:30:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T07:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=13421"},"modified":"2020-12-09T14:29:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T14:29:16","slug":"claire-booker-reviews-moonrise-by-ella-chappell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/claire-booker-reviews-moonrise-by-ella-chappell\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire Booker reviews ‘Moonrise’ by Ella Chappell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Moonrise<\/em> has the cool, bright quality of its namesake. Pale grey cover, simple clarity of title and lunar etching. And the paper – what joy. Its strong, stippled surface is a reminder that books start life as plants. Creating marginalia is a treat which emits small symphonies of crisp sound. Add to this, Rosie Sherwood\u2019s evocative nightscapes – ghostly apparitions on waxed paper that offer a liminal otherness \u2013 and the whole feel is one of quality.<\/p>\n

But what of the writing itself? Ella Chappell\u2019s poems are both sophisticated and feral. Here is a poet who is unafraid of taking risks and mostly successful with those that she does take. From the off, we\u2019re on a trajectory through night, love, identity and meaning. In 01:41, 40% waning crescent<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIf two black holes collided\/ and sent epic ripples through spacetime
\nI\u2019d be happy for this moment to be crinkled up into a thousand years.
\nOur hands would hold at the rate of an unfurling fern, and slower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moonrise is not short of arresting titles. Anisotropy is as intriguing as its own title. It lays out lengthwise across a double page and intersperses the italicized experiences of a female clubber with a philosophical lecture on happiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two categories of happiness.
\nOn New Year\u2019s Eve she tried to leave a club but couldn\u2019t get her coat from the cloakroom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Direct happiness originating in genuinely good experience.
\nAn Italian boy and his French friend dragged her back to the dance floor and took turns<\/em>
\nto push her between the bar and their warm tongues.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Chappell is no traditionalist, but her ear can be acute:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way to consume the moon.
\nThe moon is as pure as fucking.
\nBut that\u2019s the truth.
\nThere are all these lonely blue-white blooms.<\/p>\n

And, oh god, I remember now
\nThat a man used to love me,
\nAnd some day my body will be in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some poems use repetition to good effect. A few might have benefitted from the red pencil.
\nBut that\u2019s the price to pay for Chappell\u2019s brutal, honest playfulness, which offers up such gems as this solipsistic riff in Blue Buttercups<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI see my own name in retina display fifty times daily
\nAnd repeat it to myself a mantra
\nan affirmation of a concept that has disappeared
\nElla Jane Chappell watches herself, disdainful, ironic
\nwatches ellajchappell, unarmed, childlike, drunk, watches
\npure ella chappell in an abandoned Serbian dorm room\u201d . . .<\/p>\n

culminating in the wisdom of the lines:<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized<\/em> all this time I had mistaken excitement for happiness.
\nPreferable
\nto brown cones of done buddleia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In A great way to go back home she spars with concepts of identity, offering powerful lines such as: \u201cUnreal city, all I am is waiting on the weightless curation of personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chappell sparkles with fresh, original phrases, and when her choices are sharp, the result is a pleasure to read, offering a vibrant, uninhibited perspective on questions that matter. As in the close of her final poem Draughts<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is the world.<\/em>
\nIt gets no better and no worse<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n
Claire Booker<\/strong>\u2019s debut poetry pamphlet Later there will be Postcards<\/i> is published by Green Bottle Press (www.greenbottlepress.com\/our-books<\/span><\/a>). Her poems have appeared in Ambit, Magma, the Morning Star, North, Rialto and the Spectator among others. Her stage plays have been produced in America, Australia, Europe and the UK. www.bookerplays.co.uk<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Moonrise<\/em> by Ella Chappell<\/span> is <\/span>Published by As Yet Untitled<\/i>, Price \u00a310.00. <\/span>19 pages of poetry, 4 pages of photo-images (by Rosie Sherwood) It is available here: \/moonrise-by-ella-chappell\/<\/a>
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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Moonrise has the cool, bright quality of its namesake. Pale grey cover, simple clarity of title and lunar etching. And the paper – what joy. Its strong, stippled surface is a reminder that books start life as plants. Creating marginalia is a treat which emits small symphonies of crisp sound. Add to this, Rosie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-13421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13839,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13421\/revisions\/13839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}