{"id":7749,"date":"2014-11-10T09:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=7749"},"modified":"2020-12-09T14:35:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T14:35:48","slug":"william-bedfor-reviews-what-the-ground-holds-by-rosie-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/william-bedfor-reviews-what-the-ground-holds-by-rosie-jackson\/","title":{"rendered":"William Bedford reviews ‘What the Ground Holds’ by Rosie Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rosie Jackson\u2019s What the Ground Holds<\/em> celebrates what endures in the lives of individuals, and in the human and natural world. Demeter and Persephone are among the guiding mythic figures, more earthy writers and artists giving flesh to the same stories. In \u2018Recovery Stroke,\u2019 the final lines capture the recurring and moving theme: \u201cthe greatest beauty sometimes\/happens at the weakest point\u201d.
\nThe structuring idea is acted out in the first few poems. In \u2018Persephone,\u2019 the daughter of Demeter escapes from the underworld, eating the pomegranate seeds that will keep her prisoner forever. In \u2018Persephone Blames the Dress\u2019 Persephone shows her mother sewing the dress \u201ctoo tight over my eyes\/till I was falling\u201d, before \u2018Demeter Takes Up Embroidery\u2019 has her mother finally deciding \u201cI am done with all those seeds which breed loss.\u201d This is implicitly both a feminist and a Freudian story.<\/p>\n

Jackson then turns to the reality of her own family, her father taking her down a coalmine that mimics the mythic underworld, while at home \u201cMum cooks Sunday roast\u201d. We are in the world of actual families here, the world of parents and children, lovers and the bereaved. \u2018My Mother\u2019s Engagement Ring\u2019 is one of Jackson\u2019s most powerful poems, the daughter scrubbing the ring she has inherited, \u201cprodding out the years \/\/ of standing at the sink\u201d, thinking \u201cof all the things she touched\/those last forty years \/\/ and all the things – \/a man, a child, a glass of wine – \/she didn\u2019t\u201d. The abrupt final line makes the truth behind the mourning painfully real.<\/p>\n

There is a restrained anguish throughout What the Ground Holds<\/em>. Lovers in \u2018The Lovers\u2019 Exchange\u2019 find each other\u2019s stories in the scars experience has left on their bodies. A friend dies in \u2018What the Ground Holds\u2019, \u201cIn the time it takes me to type her poem,\/the room cleared\/like one of Prospero\u2019s tricks.\u201d In \u2018Dropped from Life,\u2019 another friend commits suicide, and Jackson imagines the souls of the dead wandering the world, longing to be back in life, \u201cwhere friends and lovers have forgotten\/what they promised\/about always loving,\/always holding hands\u201d.<\/p>\n

Five poems based on paintings by Stanley Spencer complete the story. Spencer himself speaks in \u2018Of Angels and Dirt,\u2019 telling us \u201cI am on the side of the angels and dirt.\u201d The next three poems are in Hilda\u2019s voice, \u2018Hilda Carline Spencer\u2019 showing the couple \u201cLinked by our sorrow\u201d, then in \u2018Seated Nude\u2019 Hilda reflecting bitterly of her own nudity \u201cThere is no lust,\/none of the meaty pleasure\/that reddens his portraits of Patricia.\u201d In \u2018Hilda, Unity, and Dolls\u2019 Hilda is confined to a mental asylum, thinking of her daughter Unity, the name that \u201cdidn\u2019t work.\/We still split up.\/I split up.\u201d In the final poem, \u2018Resurrection,\u2019 all the \u201clovers, mothers, children, fathers, plumped-up wives\u201d are brought together in the fleshy colours of Spencer\u2019s paintings, the only afterlife they will know. A fine sequence to end this marvellous collection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Order your copy of Rosie Jackson’s What the Ground Holds<\/em> (Poetry Salzburg, 2014), pp.40, priced at \u00a36 here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rosie Jackson\u2019s What the Ground Holds celebrates what endures in the lives of individuals, and in the human and natural world. Demeter and Persephone are among the guiding mythic figures, more earthy writers and artists giving flesh to the same stories. In \u2018Recovery Stroke,\u2019 the final lines capture the recurring and moving theme: \u201cthe greatest […]<\/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-7749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749","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=7749"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23701,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7749\/revisions\/23701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}