from the editor's desk
Review of ‘the seven-eight count of unstoppable sadness’ by Marcella Polain
Polain, Marcella. the seven-eight count of unstoppable sadness. Waratah, New South Wales: Puncher and Wattman, 2023. RRP: $27, 132 pp, ISBN: 9781922571540.
Jackson
Marcella Polain’s fourth poetry collection is a near-perfect demonstration of the art of leaving things out. Its poems—which document and examine the griefs, fears, loves and joys of a mature writing woman’s life, including the intergenerational aftershocks of the Armenian genocide, while subtly philosophising on the nature of time and distance—have no capital letters, only very occasional punctuation and, refreshingly, no theorising. Their feminist, political, ecological and personal laments and celebrations are expressed in a voice so firmly understated that the effect is devastating:
here are words least valued women’s words like: I adore you like: how I miss and am heart sore so I step back gaze up at you rest my palm against your confused face the way I did as I birthed you (92) Despite their understatement, however, these poems insist on being spoken—aloud or under the breath—and when Polain does break into incantatory oration, its impact (yes, I mean ‘impact’) is greatly heightened by the contrast with the book’s overall tone. In one poem, the speaker is the Armenian goddess Nar:
I am nar
I will plant a world tree in your garden
I am not invisible
my fury forces rain to fall
address me correctly (123)
This passage illustrates how, despite the title, the seven-eight count of unstoppable sadness isn’t a sad book. Jess Checkland suggests that ‘Polain’s poetry conveys a sense of powerlessness’ in the face of loss. However, although grief is indeed ‘unstoppable’, there is a great deal of healing power in Polain’s lyricism, which is both introspective and outspoken.
The book’s seventy-three poems are presented in six sections, each centred on a particular aspect of life. These include family relationships and writing itself, as well as travel—including a return to ancestral country by a daughter of diaspora. Where a lesser poet might have preached or polemicised, Polain’s hints at the horror of genocide are cleverly subtle:
heads down we trace bend un pick earth’s seam something has erupted here: obsidian mounds—glittering as knives sharp and black as satan’s fingernails (98)
Perhaps the most memorable of the six sections is ‘three’, a verse story lamenting the death of a young woman named bird and its roots in intergenerational trauma. While narrating various manifestations of grief, these poems suggest who bird was and hint at what happened to her and her family. They gradually build up to a hard-hitting reveal of her shockingly sad demise, which happens even though ‘the practiced eye can estimate by glancing / at the shape of shadows just how late it really is’ (56). The section is dedicated ‘for bird and all who love her’, illustrating how a skilful writer can give voice, empathy and comfort to a community.
Polain’s book is also a masterclass in using linebreak and whitespace—and their absence—to create tension and unity and to show the reader where to rush ahead and where to pause for breath and thought:
magpie flutters to my feet tilts the sculpture of its head its beak black marble soft stares and polishes the light in the jarrah of its eye I smile back it circles its claws click on stones its throat pulses glossy black and plump (48) This is done so well that one could share almost all these poems aloud without prereading them—something I found myself longing to do. Especially enjoyable is the playful way Polain sometimes omits words at the end of a stanza, inviting the reader’s imagination to collaborate with her: ‘even / cats have to roll themselves into plugs to’ (18).
There is only one short passage that seems weak compared with the rest. Unless I’m missing an allusion, ‘madrid’ (the first part of ‘eyes: three’) reads as a somewhat clichéd travel observation—‘fat olives in bowls’; ‘the shadows / their cool geometry a refuge’ (106). Despite its ordinariness, however, this passage is as perfectly composed as the rest.
I expected to like this book; nevertheless, I was thrilled to see just how well written and evocative it is. I hope Polain has many years of peaceful writing time ahead of her. Poets, take note: this is how it’s done.
Work Cited
Checkland, Jess. Review of the seven-eight count of unstoppable sadness by Marcella Polain, WritingWA, 26 March (2024). Sourced at: https://www.writingwa.org/for-readers/book-reviews/the-seven-eight-count-of-unstoppable-sadness/.
Writer, poet and editor Jackson was born in Cumbria, England, and now lives in Aotearoa New Zealand after many years in Western Australia. Jackson has published four full-length poetry collections, including A coat of ashes (Recent Work Press 2019) and The emptied bridge (Mulla Mulla Press 2019), plus work in many journals and anthologies, notably the Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry. Jackson’s awards include the Ros Spencer Poetry Prize. In 2018, they completed a PhD in Writing at Edith Cowan University, winning the University Research Medal and two other awards. Jackson taught English in China in 2018/2019. writerjackson.com
