from the editor's desk
Review of ‘ICAROS’ by Tamryn Bennett, illustrated by Jacqueline Cavallaro
Bennett, Tamryn. ICAROS. Illustrated by Jacqueline Cavallaro. Sydney: Vagabond Press, 2023. RRP: $25.00, 96pp, ISBN: 9781925735567.
Angela Aris
Tamryn Bennett’s ICAROS is teeming with metaphors as well as literal descriptions of the Earth and its parts. You get out what you put in when you read ICAROS; careful engagement with the poetry is essential if you want to come away with a fulfilling reading experience. The collection narrativises Bennett’s search for meaning as she journeys through and interacts with different environments, and the resulting poetry is down to earth (so to speak). The searching that ICAROS depicts is far from tropes such as the wounded soul who wanders lonely through the moonlit streets of Paris. Rather, the poems within this collection are devoted to recognising and remembering the value of species more-than-human for the continuity of all life on Earth and for healing the human soul, where Cavallaro’s illustrations demarcate changes in the collection’s tone and help in the development of themes.
The first chapter, ‘MARROW’, is concerned with origins. It establishes an ontological focus on interconnectedness and the ethical responsibilities of the reader (the apostrophic ‘you’). Bennett writes:
How do you want to die?
That’s how you must live.
What are the seeds in your heart?
That’s the tree you will become. (17)
Bennett thematises the relationship between life, death and legacy. Like much of the poetry in ICAROS, meaning is richest at the nexus-points of metaphor and literality—the reader must decide whether to tease the two apart or accept them as co-constitutive. In this sense, ‘That’s the tree you will become,’ is multi-layered, speaking to the importance of looking inwards towards one’s own heart, and to the human body’s re-unification with the Earth in death. ICAROS asks you to consider the connection between these two truths,that our material effects on the world are not distinct from our emotional states. Bennett dissolves the illusory gap between meaning and matter, between the plants described and human life:
Is it the poem or page
that makes the book?
Reeds and trees pulped
into leaves, each a portal (21, emphasis in original)
The second chapter, ‘RITUAL’, is a tribute to that which preserves and sustains spiritual and physical life. In it, Bennett establishes a reverence for, and understanding of, plant species as a core component of ritual practices. In ‘Roots’, a sort of foreword, she writes, ‘Honouring these experiences, the poems are offered as rituals for remembering nature, what we are made of and in turn what makes us…’ (14). The poems both describe and perform as rituals, allowing readers to engage with the subject of Bennett’s work beyond the conceptual. A large portion of the chapter depicts an ayahuasca ceremony, detailing the intimate relationship between the native Mexicans of the Sierra Madre Occidental region, the Wixáritari, plant species and cultural practice.
Reading ICAROS feels like surrendering: you are no longer in control, and you are no longer on the outside looking in. In Bennett and Cavallaro’s world you will rediscover what you are made of, and you will know that you are alive inside the life of all matter—algae following the deep-sea current, tumbleweed travelling over millions of grains of sand. You may be dormant or solidified, small or large, dead or alive. Bennett achieves this effect through the creation of a certain nebulousness in the work that some may find uncomfortable. Instead of punctuating each poem with a title distinct from the poem’s body, titles are incorporated into the text. This allows the collection to slip more easily between alternate times and spaces, creating fluid movement between the different lives being described:
Into the Never Never
islands masked with mists
crow calls a message
from the antlers of spruce.
Ashes in the cove
where a poem saved a forest
spells still in the air
where you collected salt. (88, emphasis in original)
These interspersed titles do require the reader to do some work. They act as a prompt to consider an image or theme of significance. They must also be acknowledged without pausing for too long and risking interruption to the flow of reading. On the other hand, this flow-on style encouraged me to read more attentively, and I was more attuned to how the poems in the collection are linked in meaning.
I was drawn to this book in part because of the illustrations. Whether it be a conscious segregation of visual arts from ‘serious’ poetics, a lack of communication between the visual arts and writerly communities, or oversight, illustrations are not often a prominent feature of poetry collections. Cavallaro’s sprawling grayscale illustrations create plant-worlds that give the book structure, and the images and poetry work together on the page to form a balanced composition. Though the images and poetry depict different content, visual allusions to the natural world stimulate the imagination, making it easier for readers to conjure the scenes Bennett describes. This visual anchoring is particularly useful in a collection such as this one, which eschews linear storytelling and central human characters, instead focusing on the specificities of objects, the senses and abstract philosophical themes, such as in ‘twisted in figure eight’:
Two sea eagles circle the sublime
spiralling transparent cartographies
to thread lizards into cloud like needles
I show you the doorway
blood trail to black snake
twisted in figure eight
How many symbols will we need
before we trust the currents? (87, emphasis in original)
This excerpt, from final chapter ‘MATTER’, emphasises themes introduced earlier in the work, such as circularity, surrender and the interrelated nature of life, through the repetition of symbols such as the ‘figure eight’. This reinforces ideas of cause and effect. There is a karmic element to this chapter too, which highlights the dependence of present-day life on past life, and comments on ‘How the dead feed the living’ (88), and ‘where your bones / become my bones.’ (89, emphasis in original). The chapter is full of heart-wrenching goodbyes, both existential and personal in nature:
There’s no returning…
Still we hunt for stories,
clues to cure the grief
carried black in your lung.
A green ring of feathers in grass
signals transformation.
The tangled bird a reminder
to mend my own
not to wait for yours (90, emphasis in original)
‘There’s no returning…’ is set in Yurok Country, the country of the ancient Redwoods in California, and centralises the idea of the individual as powerful. In 2014 poet Jacqueline Suskin, acknowledged by Bennett for ‘saving the trees and sharing the spirit level’ (94), and industrialist Neal Ewald prevented a thousand acres of forest from being cut down after Ewald was moved by Suskin’s poetry. The ‘tangled bird’ becomes an event the narrator must respond to—that they choose to ‘mend’, no longer waiting for others to act. This concept of healing is referential to the title of the collection, ICAROS, the Huichol word for ceremonial songs sung when the spirit connects with the plants to facilitate healing, protection, and guidance. This mending is significant because it embodies solidarity with plant-life and the ethos of care present in the work, but is also a departure from the general approach of a significant portion of contemporary society. This complex positionality is what makes the work of poets such as Suskin and Bennett significant; their ability to use art to underscore the reality of our interconnectedness has the potential to change minds and lead to different outcomes. Though I do not think ICAROS sets out to be a persuasive text, it certainly increased my awareness of the magic present in the world around me, that which I often overlook.
Angela is a recent graduate of UWA’s Creative Writing Honours Program. Their Honours project explores the ability of visual and other poetic forms to take up relational theories. They interned at Westerly Magazine in 2023, and co-run a creative writing workshop for students at UWA. Their writing has been published in Pelican Magazine, Damsel, and Jacaranda Journal. They are so much more than this bio.
