The Book of Blood

by Vicki Feaver

Split between dark and light, this book records the dichotomy of human experience with unflinching force and clarity. It deals with break-up, depression, illness and death. But it also reveals an intense involvement with nature and a capacity for healing and love. There are intimate personal poems reflecting on relationships with people and creatures; poems which enter the lives of real and imaginary characters, Keats and Medea and Blodeuwedd, for example; and also poems which engage with paintings and political events.

Set in a territory which connects child with adult, myth with reality, the personal with the universal, the book shows a poet fully open to the richness and possibilities of the world but also aware of its violence and pain, not as a remote observer but as someone who is a part of it.

Genres: Poetry

66 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2006

Reviews

[Bohemian Book Lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mixing the domestic with the mythical; the ekphrastic with the fairy tale; the personal with the natural world; the erotic with the transcendental; the intimate with the imaginative; the anatomical with the metaphysical; contrasting moments of visceral violence with empathic precision, passionate contemplation of beauty, insightful observation and a versatile, free verse narration — Vicki Feaver's poems in this book are BLOODY brilliant and an absolutely enriching experience in rereading! I can't recall the last time I spent revisiting and sticking to one poetry collection for so long as I have with this one. I must now possess all of her poetry books after "soaking" myself in THE BOOK OF BLOOD

[Juliet Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vicki Feaver is one of the finest poets currently writing in Scotland, I've heard her read a few times and was interested to read her work on the page for a change. She writes beautifully with a real sense for the sounds and rhythms of language, she uses a lot of subtle internal rhyme. She writes about relationships between men and women and between humans and the environment. I find her attitude to nature often rather disturbing (see the Poetry Thursday post below for more on that!). However her best poetry is truly stunning, like the last poem in the book The Blue Butterfly, where she sees nature in a more pleasant light than she normally does, or in this wonderful extract from Pills, where a woman has come off her medication:

She'd kneel on the lawn,
skirt soaked, rediscovering
the shades of grass; each blade -
like the seconds lost -
separate, sharp., drawing blood
from her thumb. She'd gaze at organges
as people gaze at statues of Christ
on the Cross: the brilliant rinds -
packed with juice, flesh, pips -
exploding like grenades,
like brains, like trapped gases
at the surface of the sun.

[Emma Filtness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, but not as good as The Handless Maiden (Judith, Marigolds and Ironing are still by far some of my favourites). There is some wonderful imagery throughout, however, making this a worthwhile read, such as at the close of The Gun: "the King of Death / had arrived to feast, stalking / out of winter woods, / his black mouth / sprouting golden crocuses.

[Mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incisive and evocative. Ranging from mythology to history to household tasks and relationships, Feaver has created a powerful and frequently disturbing anthology . Will reread.

[Gabrielle Barnby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poems draws the reader ever inwards. Fever's dexterity at handling topics and mood, and her skill in creating voices that are nuanced and truthful is enviable and inspiring. The style is unpretentious and accessible, not one over-burdened with references or obscured by technique.

The reader explores with the poet in her process of self-examination, raising questions about what is shocking and what is natural. This in turn this raises more questions, which perhaps the reader somehow overlooks because they are presented as manifestly true in the world of the poem – the toad is in the basement – we are wrapped in Fever's world. We are reminded that anyone, once pushed, can fall in the water.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I put the book beside the loo. Set myself to read a poem per pee, but so many warranted three, four or more readings, breath held and anticipating, even more appreciating, the joyful gut-kick again of the first reading, that it took longer than forty plus days to get through it. Wonderful, and wonder-full the use of words to evoke such physically-felt emotion.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, beautiful, breath taking. Will be hunting down her other collections!

[Issy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favourites;- Girl in Red, Skin

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread

[James Piss]

thats not blood thats a frogg. but you gotta do click baits now a days. i getit time s are toughout there.






Eh. Who cares?

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

easy reading poetry

[Matt Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty easy to read.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

coursework is stressing me outt