Bunny

by Selima Hill

British poet "Selima Hill's" latest collection has already been garnering praise in her native England. Bunny was short-listed for the 2001 T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice selection. Always blackly comic, sometimes beguilingly erotic, each echoing poem opens a door on madness or menace, shame, or blame. Bunny tells the intimate story of a young girl growing up in London in the 1950s, confused and betrayed but finding herself, becoming independent. Appearances are always deceptive: that predatory lodger; the animals outside and within; the girl sectioned in the hospital, nursing her sense of wrong; the blueness of things; the fire. What the house contains, it cannot hide. These poems reveal not only what was papered over, but what she learned. About how to be a woman; how to be loved; and what happens to innocence.

Genres: Poetry, British Literature

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Selima Hill (born 13 October 1945 in Hampstead) is a British poet.

Selima Hill grew up in rural England and Wales. She read Moral Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge University (1965-7). She regularly collaborates with artists and has worked on multimedia projects with the Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and BBC Bristol. She is a tutor at the Poetry School in London, and has taught creative writing in hospitals and prisons.

Selima Hill won first prize in the 1988 Arvon Foundation/Observer International Poetry Competition for her long poem The Accumulation of Small Acts of Kindness, and her 1997 collection, Violet, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award. Her book of poetry, Bunny (2001), a series of poems about a young girl growing up in the 1950s, won the Whitbread Poetry Award. A selected poems: Gloria, was published in 2008.

She was a Fellow at University of Exeter.

Selima Hill lives in Lyme Regis. Her most recent book of poetry is People Who Like Meatballs (2012), shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

another Selima for me she's been shortlisted three times for TSE but I kind of like that she's too odd and unique to win I love this collection I've not got through pigeons especially yet so early days but certainly this is my pick over Violet. SH it's dark in a bubbly way masculine violence looms as it does in life ,, the iconic Selima short lines are nicely interspersed with longer poems which feel like a slow-motion moment. She does herself well

[Russio · Rating 4 out of 5]

On first read quite disembodying - even the blurb on the back seemed incomprehensible. But then, as you go, it coalesces into a rather clever whole, with ripples running between the poems.

I won't claim to have understood the whole collection but I will agree that there are some searing metaphors constructed in here.

The collection works around a narrative with a number of aspects and seems to spiral around some key events, so that you get more information that can then be read back into previous poems.

Many are quite short and so it would be difficult to get as much from them by divorcing the from the collection but some stand well alone - Lobster being a particular favourite.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incisive and sharp book-length sequence about a child in a dangerous house. The figure at the centre of these poems is unprotected by her family from the advances of a lodger, and is also subject to dangers of fire, wildness and hospital abuse. Selima Hill's voice is unforgettable: this is told in many brief, four-line poems, as well as a few more expansive pieces, but each creates its own tiny world. This is a very insightful and original look at childhood abuse, as well as a piece that celebrates freedom, knowing one's own mind, and joy of being with animals. It's very original and very moving -- I'm so glad I read it.

[Gareth Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncomfortable but lyrical and important. Selima Hill brings into the open, in a succinct narrative arc fractured into near-haikus, an abusive childhood, and the failure of all around her. Outliving her abuser, the character who inhabits these poems, triumphs in the beauty if the sky.
I was discomforted, moved and astonished. To weave poetry from the fabric of such acts is both brave and necessary. To make it beautiful exacts a perfect revenge and renders the truth sll the more powerful.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOLY SMOKES. More like a long poem made out of very small poems. I am not concise--verbose more like. What Hill can do in six lines, four lines even, is just remarkable. These poems do that Emily Dickinson thing where they take the top off your head. I loved it so much I ordered a used copy from a bookseller in England so I could have my own copy to reference again and again.

[Aryo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selima is undoubtedly a strong poet. The book has to be taken in its entirety even if there are some standout poems - Prawns De Jo, Stars and Doorway to name a few. Will certainly read it again and linger longer.

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this - Selima has an incredible way of making you think about ordinary things in an extraordinary way. Themes run throughout the book - the colour blue, the lodger - as we race through the protagonist’s adolescence.

[Lucia Cannizzaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painfully beautiful.

[Hari Z Hutahayan]

Narrative in careful context and conveying the situation. Some puss feel odd and make it impossible to sleep.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Words understandable in verse form. Favorites are lodger, blue, hair, thighs.

a million ways of failing to say home p. 26
drill through her brain to the sorrow
that never stops p 69

[Helen McClory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slippery and deeply alarming.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home

When she thinks of home, the word 'home'
echoes in her mouth

like 'the dead'
echoes in the mouths of the living.
(p45)



Running

The giant rabbit running through the woods
is running through the woods because of her-

because he knows the girl who can't stop running
is nicer than the one the Aunt's prefer.

(p60)

[Tegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book speaks to the confused adolescent on the cusp of losing her innocence (but clinging to it, and her childhood, with desperate terror) that lingers inside many women. I connected with this book so intensely, I have the cover image carved into my hip. Literally.

[Cau · Rating 4 out of 5]

contact me if you happen to have a used copy :)

[heartful · Rating 3 out of 5]

A haunting collection of poems about childhood.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books of poetry I have ever read. Definitely the most unnerving and gut wrenching. Loved it.