Egg/Shell

by Victoria Kennefick

The Poetry Book Society Spring Choice 2024

'It is hard to hurt and then explain the hurt away / so as not to hurt anyone. But have you seen / my life?' ('Child of Lir')

The lives depicted by Victoria Kennefick alter, shatter and recombine in stunning monologues, innovative hybrid forms and piercing her second book Egg/Shell is a diptych, a double album, which explores early motherhood and miscarriage, and the impact of a spouse's gender transition and the dissolution of a marriage. Acclaimed as one of the boldest poetic voices to emerge in recent years, Kennefick, in the follow-up to her best-selling Eat or We Both Starve, breaks new ground with generosity, emotional complexity, formal ingenuity and wit.

Genres: Poetry

118 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 29, 2024

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so unbelievably beautiful and moving and empathetic. I felt so much emotion while I was reading it.

The first half explores pregnancy, early motherhood, and infertility. The poet speaks to her children, both the one she gives birth to and the ones she miscarries. The dichotomy of soft, quiet grief and sometimes sharp, unexpected humor is brilliant. The second half is about her ex-partner’s gender transition and the end of their marriage.

It’s a book about transformation: her own, her body’s, her child’s, her partner’s. Throughout, she offers the title metaphors — the eggs and the shells, the swans and incubation and the cracking and the flight.

A few favorites for me were “On being two in the Anthropocene,” “O Brigid, O Exalted One, listen to my plea as I celebrate you,” “Potion,” “The ego is crushed like a snail shell under a stiletto and is begrudgingly divested of its own smugness,” and “Cygnus, the swan in the stars,” but it’s the flow of each to the next throughout the whole collection that really makes things shine. Stunning.

[Ella Barron Carton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful, heavy yet tender collection from Kennefick. Images are repeated in such a way as to layer them in metaphor by the end of this collection. I expect I'll never see a swan again without thinking about this book.

[Isidora Durán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book of poems about growth, destruction & regeneration. Ending the acknowledgements with ‘trans rights are human rights’ was perfect.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsE4t...

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The eggshell too / a trap — it must crack.” The second poetry collection from Victoria Kennefick, egg/shell, is full of transformations — of the body and the mind, of lives and relationships; the poems themselves are often hybrid in form, and the collection as a whole is a diptych, with the ‘egg’ poems largely exploring pregnancy and early motherhood, and the ‘shell’ poems mainly concerned with the end of a marriage in the face of a partner’s gender transition. In ‘On Being Two in the Anthropocene’, Kennefick mourns the inexorable changes of the world and the child: “I get sad as earth becomes sea. I get sad / that in showing you this sinking world / I teach you how to say goodbye.” Meanwhile in ‘Nightbaby’, a world is made for a nocturnal baby feeding, for the nursing mother, and for all mothers and babies in that liminal space: “Lunar light from my phone, my own brain, the moon / all shining. It's scary how big the night is, how small / we are in it. Think of the others up with us, / a night-nation of milk and mouths all fumbling / towards each other in the dark, singing. / The shape of you, a crescent against me. Little planet / exploring your phases.” Later, in the collection’s second half, the penultimate poem ‘Child of Lir’ so perfectly encapsulates the tension between love and loss that hangs over the transition-and-breakup poems, yet more painful, beautiful change: “I want to celebrate with you the hurrying away from / a body that didn't fit. I want to celebrate with you / the escape from clothes that made you dull yourself. / Lift away, climb out and take to the sky in your beautiful / form, familiar and new, your arms are strong and can / always fly. Don't look back if you can at me standing / by the wreckage. I will be weeping like a wife.” There are so many other exceptional poems in this collection (‘Chicken’, ‘Le Cygne, My Spirit Animal’, ‘Halloween’, ‘To All The Babies I (N)ever Had’, ‘Silver Swan Automaton’, and ‘Census Night Poem’, to name just a few), which builds on and supersedes Kennefick’s exquisite debut and stands as one of 2024’s great poetic achievements.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant follow-up to Kennefick's unforgettable first collection, Eat or We Both Starve. Kennefick's poetry is expansive and energetic, and alive with surprising images. This whole book is a virtuoso performance, full of long sinuous poems and astute, taut observations. The first half of the collection, 'Egg,' looks at motherhood and secondary infertility, examining miscarriage, heartbreak, and the expectations we have for ourselves and that others have for us. The 'egg', both a hen's egg and a human's egg, is an important image throughout this section, as Kennefick uses a study of swans, incubation and details of eggs as objects, food, and life, to explore infertility and the sense of being trapped and locked in due to grief and unfulfilled hopes. The second half of the collection, 'shell,' explores a partner's transition and a subsequent marriage break-up. Kennefick writes about her former partner's experiences with tenderness and empathy, as well as a wry humour. In a world where trans people are treated with hostility, Kennefick's poems give a much-needed account of empathy, love and acceptance. Kennefick writes of the loss she feels about the end of her marriage, but also writes with clarity and generosity, such as in her poem, 'To The Swan That Has Fallen in Love With a Pedalboat':

I wintered with a man-shape,
beautiful girl hidden inside, steering away,
screaming, and I didn't hear a thing.

[Colette Colfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful collection of poetry, confessional in style, full of raw-hope and woundedness. Recurring images of eggs, shells and swans with themes of birth, loss, transformation, flight, broken dreams. Plath-esque in terms of shadow and the dark side that shimmers against the light. Kennefick enters the voice of a narrator who is plunged repeatedly into a searing pain. At a time when poets are implicitly required to publicly align themselves with a particular political angle or face the end of their career, it’s clear from the acknowledgements section that Kennefick has planted a flag in the land but the poems themselves hint at something deeper. Stripped from political alignments and focusing on the craft of poetry, the imagery, rhythm and the life or lives contained, I really loved this collection.

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart broke many times while reading Victoria Kennefick's second poetry collection, Egg/Shell. Through poems about miscarriage, motherhood, and gender transition, Kennefick evokes deep emotional truths, exploring how inevitable pain shapes us.

The collection feels cathartic, offering a sense of solidarity in our shared pain. Sometimes, poetry captures the depth of suffering in ways that clinical explanations simply cannot.

As is often the case with Irish writers, the emotions in Egg/Shell feel raw and real, making it impossible to look away from the suffering it portrays. Kennefick's voice leaves you wondering how you might feel in her place, confronting the very human ache at the heart of these experiences.

[Rebecca Steer · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a tricky one because i absolutely LOVE some of these poems. ‘cygnus’ is actually one of my favourites of all time, and i thought the themes were really powerful, but there were just too many that felt gimmicky, or like they had a punchline, which absolutely has its place, but it was just a little too much for me.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful & v moving

[Sarah Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely exquisite, esp “on being two in the anthropocene”

[Asa ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find I never know how to read a volume of poetry like this, but the running theme through the poems was helpful, and there are some beautiful individual poems in here.

[Luke Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blisteringly honest, inventive, exciting, moving...Victoria Kennefick is the real deal.

[Chris Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for me. Clearly has a strong emotional resonance for a lot of people but just didn't click for me.