![\"Girl,](\"http:\/\/www.gatehousepress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/girl-falling-cover-final-lighter-front-2-440x620.jpg\" "\\"Girl,")
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Every poem born of love or hope \/ is a risk<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n P.B. Hughes writes with intelligence and wit about her search for an authentic self. Girl, Falling<\/em> is a pamphlet full of edgy language and varied layout that sometimes flows, sometimes disrupts\u2013 at times with unfinished lines. However, Hughes\u2019 work is well crafted and accessible. My test of a good book is if I read it straight through, without stopping, and this was the case.<\/p>\n The book starts with a relationship demise and how, despite efforts to submerge herself to her partner\u2019s needs\u2013 he unexpectedly leaves her. Hughes’ work conveys a struggle to emerge from gender bias and relationship. She examines language and punctuation, even the word No. In her opening poem, Dear World, she likens herself to punctuation, I am a full stop then a comma and finishes by saying: She questions society, Binary thinking is the pinball\/of politicians, and reality, Don\u2019t\u2019 start with the assumption \/ that anything is real. Questions for a Lake<\/em>, a list poem, is one of my favourites. It is also a poem of self-enquiry, including such questions as: What colour is your vision? Does silence exist? Did you feel like an outcast? At what depth are your secrets?<\/p>\n The poem that follows is Falling<\/em>, in which she decides to enter the waters of self-discovery by plunging into a swimming lake. Water continues to be a theme throughout. In a later poem she is at sea with loss and little to navigate by.<\/p>\n There is intimation of rape, condoned by her partner. Poems that follow this seem more fragmented while delving deeper for answers. Some end with unfinished sentences:<\/p>\n Knee Deep in the North Sea<\/em><\/p>\n Take the fish and the selfie.<\/em> escalator\u2013 a narrow shaft of a prose poem, ends:<\/p>\n few interact with the<\/em> A daughter, born via C-section, brings the possibility of love.\u00a0 Dressing a Daughter,<\/em> is a mother\u2019s poem for a girl growing strong:<\/p>\n My daughter\u2019s shoes are red like her heart<\/em> and when her daughter wants to daub her lips with red shoe polish, she ponders how to voice concerns for safety over experiment:<\/p>\n Do I<\/em> There are political nuances, Footnotes on Genocide, and on xenophobia, Keep Your Distance.\u00a0 However, the last four poems bring a more positive note, expressing gratitude and a need for radical hope. Waters of loss and searching become a downpour of rain, with the welcome shelter of domestic contentment:<\/p>\n Clothes hung above an Aga afterwards<\/em> Her final poem Source, feels triumphant, yet still twists and questions:<\/p>\n I keep coming back to you<\/em> of its brash belly clap on water\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n
\ni was light stilled to shadow <\/em>
\nyour negative<\/em><\/p>\n
\n Fist the beach. Take home<\/em>
\n a fistful of sand to hell with it.<\/em>
\n Take out the metaphors and<\/em><\/p>\n
\n blank sea rising<\/em>
\n and falling to the<\/em>
\n sound recording of a<\/em><\/p>\n
\n She wears them fiercely<\/em>
\n Red shoes to climb trees<\/em><\/p>\n
\n Talk about the a and b scenarios<\/em>
\n \u2013 the safety of lipstick<\/em>
\n for girls, the safety of shoe polish<\/em>
\n for lips \u2013 ?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n all I could smell was rain<\/em>
\n rain in your hair
\non your skin
\nas I stood behind you in a borrowed kitchen
\nwhile you buttered toast<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
\n back to source. Like salmon<\/em>
\n although I hate the thought<\/em><\/p>\n