Rhook, Nadia. Second Fleet Baby. Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2023. RRP: $29.99, 101pp, ISBN: 9781760991692.
Veronica Lake
The umbilical cord between a mother and child may be physically cut at birth, but its shadow connects women to their children and to their children’s children across past, present and future. The colonisation of Australia seen through the female body and under that shadow of connection becomes the initial and central theme in Nadia Rhook’s second poetry collection, Second Fleet Baby (Fremantle Press 2023). Crafted with precision and meticulous detail, Rhook’s exploration of these notions begins with a focus on the second wave of British convict transport ships. The Second Fleet consisted of six ships—four transport ships and two store ships. Three of the transport ships carried mostly male convicts while the fourth, The Lady Julianna, only carried women. It is these women and their stories that form the primary source of the poems in this text.
Divided into five sections which move chronologically from the initial histories of the cohort of transported women, through to the present day and contemporary issues such as IVF treatments, the text explicates the complex experience of reproduction. Rhook begins with the contribution made by female colonisers to settler Australian history through the important process of giving birth. The poetry does this by remaining firmly focused on the bond between mother and child. Beginning with the section ‘Susannah of the Sea’, the collection plunges the reader into the raw and immediate experience of one woman: Susannah Porter, who was born on The Lady Juliana as it made its voyage to Australia (8). The section opens with an historical record of Porter’s life, such is the weight of Rhook’s careful investigation and research informing and supporting the poems. And, while not a poem in itself, the record cements the remainder of the poems in fact—in the actual—as the women Rhook writes become the vessels of history. These women are ‘the minimum cargo of women’ (9) required to populate the new world with white or English children. The title of one poem, ‘These women are the great, great grandmothers of thousands of Australians today’ (23), reminds the reader of an important strand of Australian heritage, one that should be recognised and is often forgotten.
The form of the poems is mainly free verse, however there is nothing slipshod or casual about their structure. Everything is balanced, ordered and cohesive. Not a word is wasted. Rhook’s use of metaphor is powerful, focusing attention on the physical and spiritual impact of new life. For example, when a mother encounters her child for the first time and is shocked into awareness of a new life, she ‘meets her daughter, this bright ball of screaming rage’ (14), and in ‘inventing rituals on Eora land’,
the only thing the colony provided was absolution the
priest raised his arm to baptise every child called ‘illegitimate’ like
a soldier waged and armed with holy water
each sprinkle a soul saved
a head anointed with belonging (21)
Rhook appears fascinated by the precision of words and devotes considerable time and care to setting out clear definitions. Sometimes the effect seems almost like haiku. One word presented in this way is ‘forebear’:
forebear (noun)
‘ancestor,’ late 15c.,from fore ‘before’ + be-er
‘one who exists’;
Originally Scottish.
forebear (verb)
‘to abstain,’ Old English forberan
‘bear up against,
control one’s feelings, abstain from, refrain’;
Of similar formation are Old High German ferberen, Gothic frabairan
‘to endure’. (28)
While not exactly a poem, the shape, or structure, is suggestive. The definition set down here resonates through other poems. A second poem, ‘footnote’ (33), is broken into a series of definitions, each one like a footnote. The poem questions the past and who defines it, as well as the process of having poetry—another form of creation—accepted for publication. Several poems adopt the prose poem form, often including facts and details from Rhook’s research. ‘matrescence’ (84) is one example and ‘spectres of history’ (69) is another.
I am most drawn to the poem ‘pink petals’ (68). Here the juxtaposition of the beauty of petals with a needle—‘the difference between these flowers and this needle, the / point and the petals’ (68)—is maintained throughout the poem, exploring the reproductive process in a delicate balance of opposite. The beauty of childbirth accompanied by pain is insinuated via the imagery creating strong conflicting emotions.
Rhook makes connections between various points of history, from Nazi policy and D-Day in ‘the prettiest’ (78), to the future in ‘Assisted reproduction’ (88). Many of her poems ask questions that invite the reader to ponder the ramifications of birth. In ‘Watching Free Willy with a Newborn in the Age of Covid-19′, the speaker asks, ‘Will you know how love, too, can jump between species, and live’ (85). Earlier, in ‘zygote’ (72), the miracle of conception is placed in a laboratory:
in a perfectly circular
transparent dish
sperm and egg
became zygote (72)
There is no sentimental gushing in this collection and yet the poems generate an awareness of the complexity of the history of conception and birth, all that it entails, and the impact it has on our future. As a mother myself, I found I had to reconsider the entire process. Rhook has presented a complex and insightful examination of Australian history as well as exposing the personal journey a mother takes in today’s world.
Veronica Lake is a Churchill Fellow (2010) and is a retired teacher long associated with Literature. She is a member of the OOTA Writer’s Group and Poetry WA. Her first collection of poems, Dragonfly Wing, was published in 2019 by Sunline Press. Her poetry has also been published in journals in Australia, New Zealand, America, England and India. She lives by the sea.