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From One to Another\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A Body Made of You<\/em> asks to be read straight through without pause: as one might rush through the rooms of an exhibition hurriedly, excitedly, to get an impression of the whole. And there is a definite pleasure in this rush \u2013 a pleasure that is almost sexual \u2013 because the book is seductive in a physical sense, managing to tap into the appetites of the body directly through the language and images of the subconscious.<\/p>\n The book is divided into fourteen sections, with each section dedicated to a particular subject or \u201cmuse.\u201d Lee-Houghton\u2019s process involved getting to know her \u2018sitters\u2019 through interviews and paintings (see A Body Made of You<\/em> \u2013 back cover); a practice which has yielded poems that question both how we relate to one another, and whether it is possible for us to really know one another at all.<\/p>\n Annie, who stands \u201cbehind a shadow screen\/lit like a moth\u2019s wing\u201d (\u2018Still\u2019 p. 41, lines 1-2), is presented as a fragile character. When the poet promises not<\/em> to show \u201cpounds and ounces, greying hairs, or a terrified pubis\u201d (\u2018Still\u2019 p. 41, line 11), she reveals Annie\u2019s vulnerability in the most direct way possible. The cruelty of the one who looks and who draws on the energies of a muse becomes apparent. When the poet writes: \u201cTrust me, Annie, I am not a man, and my art will not seduce you\u201d (\u2018Still\u2019 p. 41, line 12), the reader catches Annie\u2019s fear, her mistrust of men, and also her weakness for them. In this line we also understand the poet, who recognises the \u2018artfulness\u2019 of her male counterparts. But do we really believe her when she writes: \u201cmy art will not seduce you\u201d?<\/p>\n The poem displays elements of care and cruelty in the poet\u2019s attitude towards her subject, and this makes for a brave examination of women\u2019s often ambiguous relationships with one another. It also dramatizes the problems attached to a female poet adopting what has been called \u2013 by feminist critics \u2013 the \u2018male gaze.\u2019 But Lee-Houghton takes on the role of \u2018seer\u2019 without sentimentality, and embraces conflicting and contradictory states of being wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n \u2018A Body Made of You\u2019, which also addresses Annie, extends the poet\u2019s exploration of this female-female relationship. \u201cIt\u2019s not even your body that interests me, Annie\u201d (\u2018A Body Made of You\u2019 pp. 42-43, p. 42, line 9), the poet writes, going on to say:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n there are women in you<\/p>\n who cut trousers out of wheat sacks,<\/p>\n darned stockings and socks while they starved<\/p>\n to feed their kids, who lost husbands to shell blasts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (\u2018A Body Made of You\u2019 pp. 42-43, p. 42, lines 15-18)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In contrast to the vulnerable, fragile Annie of \u2018Still\u2019, Lee-Houghton shows us the other women Annie is: strong, stoical and surviving. The \u2018Body Made of You\u2019 is many, and there are as many different versions of \u2018I\u2019 as there are versions of \u2018You\u2019, since we relate to one another according to the shifts in what we call our identity. By the end of the poem, Annie\u2019s image is \u201cclose to blurring\u201d (\u2018A Body Made of You\u2019 pp. 42-43, p. 43, line 37); but the blurred image is not \u2013 as might traditionally be the case \u2013 an imperfect image. It is simply the image that results from the multiplicity of selves Annie is.<\/p>\n In \u2018Dog-mask\u2019, one of the poems inspired by Stephen, Lee-Houghton runs with her images and appears to free associate from one thought to the next. This gives her lines fluency and confidence \u2013 and takes real guts when many English poets are reluctant to explore the associative powers of the subconscious. Lines like:<\/p>\n I give you handfuls of glass, a glass full of blood,<\/p>\n a sterile wish for silence<\/p>\n <\/p>\n or a mask with dog teeth<\/p>\n to put on a face that women won\u2019t want<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (\u2018Dog-mask\u2019 pp. 15-16, p. 16, lines 29-32)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n have more in common with Federico Garcia-Lorca or Lidija Dimkovska than with any English poets, and Lee-Houghton makes use of such allegorical symbols \u2013 masks, blood, glass \u2013 in a way that avoids the conventional, straightforwardly descriptive poetic portrait.<\/p>\n By exploring her concerns within the discourse of visual art practice, Lee-Houghton concentrates the reader\u2019s mind on questions relating to the possibilities and limits of the world of appearances. Her word-portraits acknowledge the difficulties of a linear, descriptive language while reaching for different forms of representation. The fearlessness of the voice in these poems is exciting, as is the wealth of surreal imagery, which \u2013 like the images in a dream-world \u2013 make a strange, sideways sense.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Melissa Lee-Houghton\u2019s A Body Made of You <\/em><\/a>is published by Penned in the Margins, 2011<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Amy McCauley<\/strong> is completing the MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her work has been published in a number of magazines including The Rialto<\/em>, The North<\/em> and Tears in the Fence<\/em>. http:\/\/www.thecadaverine.com\/?p=3634<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From One to Another\u00a0 A Body Made of You asks to be read straight through without pause: as one might rush through the rooms of an exhibition hurriedly, excitedly, to get an impression of the whole. And there is a definite pleasure in this rush \u2013 a pleasure that is almost sexual \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788","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=2788"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2790,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions\/2790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}