from the editor's desk
Review of ‘Suburban Fantasy’ by Michelle Seminara and ‘Rhymes with Hyenas’ by Heather Taylor-Johnson
Seminara, Michelle. Suburban Fantasy. Perth: UWA Publishing, 2021. RRP: $22.99, 92 pp, ISBN: 9781760802073.
Taylor-Johnson, Heather. Rhymes with Hyenas. Watson: Recent Work Press, 2021. RRP: $19.95, 102pp, ISBN: 9780645008982.
Gemma White
Suburban Fantasy and Rhymes with Hyenas are both poetry collections that make use of intertextuality, but they do so in different ways for varying purposes. Suburban Fantasy conjures a series of disturbing dream flashbacks that seem to glimpse into the very unconscious mind itself, while Rhymes with Hyenas takes a look at literary constructs of the feminine, bringing them into a modern social context to see how they stack up.
In Suburban Fantasy, many literary sources are remixed into new poems. The diversity of these texts demands acknowledgement of Seminara’s clear and consistent voice throughout the book, one that is clearly her own, despite paying homage to other writers. The suburban fantasy that appears in this book is perhaps more nightmare than daydream, and Seminara never shies away from exploring the shadows and liminal states of life and death, the reasons ‘why I wept and drank / more […] those dark soul nights spent / baying in the back garden / at the stars’ (86). Even suicidal thoughts are included, as if to nod to the death drive, ‘One day I shall fall / down those stairs / and it will be / a release’ (62). In many of these poems, the minimal style does not give much away in terms of meaning. Instead, each poem is like a cinematic experience of small shots or glimpses of images. For example, in ‘clot’, the opening, ‘sun gushing like blood’, already puts us ill at ease; with ‘water rising / like prayer’, we feel a desperation, but we don’t know why (63). Small images—’collapse of bone and body’, ‘flies’, ‘lone eye’—maintain the tension without explaining it (63). While there is a kind of existential horror in the poems of Suburban Fantasy, there is also a feeling of intimacy, of being well known by the narrator—but not necessarily liked. The narrator tells us, ‘my breath enters / your sealed / landscapes / within’, almost signifying a kind of emotional transgression. At other points, the relationship between mother and child appears as a redemptive force, yet one that is also vulnerable to life’s unknown intentions. In ‘Involuntary’, the narrator is ‘ardently watching him’, as her ‘son reads’, thinking of the ‘myriad processes functioning to hold us’ in any one moment, her heart shuddering with trepidation.
I want to say something now about what I felt was the standout poem in this work—‘Incarnate’, written in memoriam of Ramon Loyola, which reports how he was ‘evicted by his body’, yet was ever ‘intending to return’ as one does when ‘you leave / your home every morning’ (89). This bittersweet bit of humour is so tragic. The cause of his death, explained in imagery-rich language:
A papery vein burst in Ramon’s brain
and out tumbled his full bounty of jewels,
each orb a revelation of pomegranate seed
quickening on our tongues— (89)
The meanings are condensed in Suburban Fantasy, language is used powerfully, and the underbelly of suburbia lies exposed—’Run, stranger! I am telling you— / soon you will wake’ (87).
In Rhymes with Hyenas, the fourth wall is breached as a variety of literary heroines come into everyday existence as poets living in and around Adelaide, quite contemporary with modern times, being ‘shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award’ and having ‘a first poetry collection […] out with Wakefield Press’, respectively. At first, I found this blatant conflation of current reality with literary history a bit abrupt, and I wasn’t sure it worked, but as I began to delve deeper into the collection, I found that the characters from these original works came to life in a new way which their original texts did not allow. Furthermore, by bringing Lilith, Ursula, Gudrun, Caddy, Delores, Mel and Katherina into modern life, their individual plights as women become all the more relatable. For example, Ursula is caring for her ailing partner, Rupert, and Lilith is grieving over Eve and dealing with an MS diagnosis. Rhymes with Hyenas is not just feminist because it foregrounds women’s everyday lives and activities, it also offers a powerful retelling of dominant literary narratives and a breakdown of written hierarchies—in this book, poems are printed alongside emails between the poets, elevating everyday life to the echelons of the printed word. There is also a nuanced and intriguing feature in the intertextuality of some of the poems by these poets. Poems written by Ursula often quote lines by D. H. Lawrence, as if the character is taking her home text and reorienting herself to it in her own words. This practice comes up as a point of argument between Ursula and her sister Gudrun, who tells her, ‘she wished I could separate myself from the text, and perhaps I feel defined by my “character”’ (69). Further contention is raised when Lilith names The Taming of the Shrew (Katherina’s literary origin story) in one of her poems. Ursula states ‘We need to keep examining ourselves through the stories we tell, and the stories other women tell […] don’t we hope, most of all, to speak to one another?’ (79). Rhymes with Hyenas is a collection of poetry that aims to speak to women, and does so with kindness, empathy and honesty. When reading this work, you might feel like you’ve just found some new literary friends.
Gemma White is a poet living in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia. She has had two poetry collections published by Interactive Press; Furniture is Disappearing and Oh My Rapture. She shares her knowledge of poetry at www.gemmawhite.com.au, where she offers a free 5-day email poetry course.
