Muses and Bruises

by Fran Lock

Culture Matters, an imprint of Manifesto Press, has published a new collection of poetry by Fran Lock. The poems are accompanied by full colour collages by Steev Burgess. Fran Lock is an activist, writer and illustrator, and one of the finest political poets around. Like John Clare, Lock evokes the troubling, often agonising effects of capitalist society on personal and social identity. Her feminist and socialist poetry weaves psychological insight and social awareness into themes of poverty, mental health problems, sexual abuse, domestic violence and political struggle. Vivid, lavish and punchy, it combines a deep sense of anger and injustice with vulnerable empathy and compassion. The poems in this collection revel in richness and in strangeness. They are about the unlikely places where working class women find beauty and meaning, and the unlikely materials from which they are composed. Fran said, 'If I understand how language is used then I know when I'm being lied about and when I'm being lied to. If I have poetry, I have a voice, and that voice is a sword and a shield. If I can think for myself, speak for myself, then I can define myself and represent myself. That is a dangerous and wonderful thing. I reclaim it, I appropriate it, I snatch it back as an act of daily, defiant radicalism. It all belongs to all of us. Poetry is waiting, go and claim it.' The fragmented yet coherent collages of Steev Burgess complement and enhance those meanings perfectly. The images dance with the poems, singing together about muses and bruises, fantasy and reality grind and grime with a lick of glitter

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Reviews

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

The nine muses get the Fran Lock poetry makeover! It’s all very modernist, angsty and pyropoetical, but this is such stereotypical fair for the female poet it lacks vitality. The only thing that keeps this above the norm is the quality of the writing, which zings along in Lock’s usual dazzling way.