What do you think?
Rate this book
Plot and Counter-Plot
Helena Nelson's first collection, Starlight on Water (Rialto, 2003) was joint winner of the Aldeburgh Jerwood Prize. She is founder editor of HappenStance Press, which specialises in poetry pamphlets.
- GenresPoetry
54 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
11 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 19, 2010
One uncomfortable night I sat in the round, the only man in a ring of maybe a dozen women, each taking it in turn to discuss a novel we’d read apart and were now discussing together. And each of them in turn began by saying whether or not they had liked the cover and made a strong statement defending their view. The first time I nearly smiled, but it was my first night and I was more uncomfortable than needed to be, you know, given I should have already known I wouldn’t be coming back. By the third or perhaps fourth woman there was a voice in my head – the voice that is that not so terribly kind one that is also my own, I am quite prepared to own it – saying, ‘Isn’t there a saying somewhere about judging covers?’ And, as you can see, often that unkind voice in my head likes to feign mock ignorance.
It is impossible not to mention the cover of this book. When I brought it out of its yellow wrapper today it struck me with a shock of colour and it took my breath away. Perhaps, given my limited experience in literary criticism as mentioned above, it is best not to judge a book by its cover, but since all books must have covers, this one is a particularly striking and stunningly beautiful one. Even though the painting doesn’t have a name, it reminds me of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or perhaps rather a dream of a thousand children’s stories and fairy tales - (now we have dispensed with illusion) - all brought together in a single whole, and perhaps this is done with mirrors.
I seem to be drawn to delicate poems, simple as cut glass, but as painful to touch as broken shards. Still, I can’t help picking them up, even if they do cut my fingers. And sometimes poems like that seem to need to come in groups, as if they require mutual support. In this book they cluster in three in the middle and their titles together almost make a little poem all on their own: Impasse, After, Rehearsal.
If this book was a tree and if I had to choose which limb to go out on, the one I would be required to go out on, the one I would pick to shimmy over – belly first , knees clutching the bark – would be Rehearsal. I’m almost certain it would be Rehearsal. I have had that cup of tea, and even with a spoonful of sugar and a drop of milk, it is still bitter/sweet.
What will it be like
waking one day and feeling wrong,
having the feeling not go away –
having it mean everything?
Some of the poems are funny and some surreal and there are others that are like little butterflies that come in on tiny wings only to brush up against your lips. Those are the ones you least expect, sneaky little poems with translucent wings called The Kiss that then you find stay with you like a troubled smile.
The Size of Grief , of course, is another. There are a few poems in this collection about death – death and love and loss and loving too much or not enough – poems about life. The Size of Grief stopped me and made me read it three, maybe four times. Hard to tell, because you don’t really read poems all the way through sometimes, but you scan and rescan stanzas after they have tripped you. It’s not like stumbling over a tree-root on a path, where you stutter forward out of control, going further than you meant. No, these stop you altogether:
They speak of
‘getting over it’, they talk of
‘getting through’
I really liked that. I liked the size without mentioning size. I liked it so much that I read it over again, but then this came –
and simple as a leaf.
One side is black and it is grief.
The other (the green side) is love.
And, of course, it is the assonant link here between ‘other’ and ‘love’ that made me stop and search for the rhyme with love I thought I’d missed, but knew, somehow, that I hadn’t and that it was there, somewhere. And that was part of the meaning too, in fact, more than part.
It has been my constant experience – as Carson McCullers says – that there is one who loves and one who is loved. So, I’ll end here:
After
She doesn’t yearn for him
as he yearns for her
but in the night
when the stars grow dim
and he turns to her,
she turns to him.
It is impossible not to mention the cover of this book. When I brought it out of its yellow wrapper today it struck me with a shock of colour and it took my breath away. Perhaps, given my limited experience in literary criticism as mentioned above, it is best not to judge a book by its cover, but since all books must have covers, this one is a particularly striking and stunningly beautiful one. Even though the painting doesn’t have a name, it reminds me of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or perhaps rather a dream of a thousand children’s stories and fairy tales - (now we have dispensed with illusion) - all brought together in a single whole, and perhaps this is done with mirrors.
I seem to be drawn to delicate poems, simple as cut glass, but as painful to touch as broken shards. Still, I can’t help picking them up, even if they do cut my fingers. And sometimes poems like that seem to need to come in groups, as if they require mutual support. In this book they cluster in three in the middle and their titles together almost make a little poem all on their own: Impasse, After, Rehearsal.
If this book was a tree and if I had to choose which limb to go out on, the one I would be required to go out on, the one I would pick to shimmy over – belly first , knees clutching the bark – would be Rehearsal. I’m almost certain it would be Rehearsal. I have had that cup of tea, and even with a spoonful of sugar and a drop of milk, it is still bitter/sweet.
What will it be like
waking one day and feeling wrong,
having the feeling not go away –
having it mean everything?
Some of the poems are funny and some surreal and there are others that are like little butterflies that come in on tiny wings only to brush up against your lips. Those are the ones you least expect, sneaky little poems with translucent wings called The Kiss that then you find stay with you like a troubled smile.
The Size of Grief , of course, is another. There are a few poems in this collection about death – death and love and loss and loving too much or not enough – poems about life. The Size of Grief stopped me and made me read it three, maybe four times. Hard to tell, because you don’t really read poems all the way through sometimes, but you scan and rescan stanzas after they have tripped you. It’s not like stumbling over a tree-root on a path, where you stutter forward out of control, going further than you meant. No, these stop you altogether:
They speak of
‘getting over it’, they talk of
‘getting through’
I really liked that. I liked the size without mentioning size. I liked it so much that I read it over again, but then this came –
and simple as a leaf.
One side is black and it is grief.
The other (the green side) is love.
And, of course, it is the assonant link here between ‘other’ and ‘love’ that made me stop and search for the rhyme with love I thought I’d missed, but knew, somehow, that I hadn’t and that it was there, somewhere. And that was part of the meaning too, in fact, more than part.
It has been my constant experience – as Carson McCullers says – that there is one who loves and one who is loved. So, I’ll end here:
After
She doesn’t yearn for him
as he yearns for her
but in the night
when the stars grow dim
and he turns to her,
she turns to him.
August 2, 2013
I really enjoyed this collection and liked the use of the ballad form in many of them. I liked the way the poet took ordinary things like the death of a neighbour, a walk etc. and somehow transfused them with meaning and metaphorical dimension. I particularly liked 'Gone', 'Putting words in your mouth' and 'Making the bed'.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews