Amongst the madness of last year’s silly season was a little oasis, namely the launch of local poet Suzanne Edgar‘s latest collection, The love procession. It was an oasis not only because the launch was for a book of poetry, but also because it took place in the peace of a garden. Poetry and gardens – a match made in heaven don’t you think?
And in fact, there are gardens in this collection of poems, but before I write about the poems, I’d like to mention the title and cover. As Edgar explained at the launch, the title comes from a painting she loved in the Renaissance Exhibition held at the National Gallery of Australia a year ago. The painting, “Love procession”, is attributed to Marco del Buono and Giovanni di Apollonio, from the 1440s. Apparently it took many months for Edgar and the publishers to negotiate the rights to use the painting, but it was worth it because the end result is a simple, yet rich and stylish cover.
It’s a good title because the collection is about love – romantic and other – and about procession. About the procession of our lives – about love, life and death, about work and the things that keep us going, about friends and family, about nature that travels with us. The subject matter reflects the poet’s stage of life, someone who’s lived more than a few decades, who’s travelled, worked, lost friends and family, managed homes, experienced passion and peace. Well, you know what I mean. I could mention for example a poem about clutter, which conveys the melancholy of time passing:
Wilting hats from our salad days
match skirts too small at the waist.
(from “Silt”)
Or one about the real ravages of age:
A patch of muddy clay could well betray
unwary folk who have a metal hip
and hope to play again another day.
(from “Winter Sports”)
The collection’s first poem is – as you might expect – titled “‘Corteo d’amore’ (Love procession)” and is Edgar’s response to the painting. She imagines the groom waiting at the other end of the procession, reflecting. It’s a cheeky poem that contains both a sense of excitement and uncertainty, setting just the right tone for the rest of the collection:
To bed the girl had always been his goal
but laughing in the square, she’d seemed less grand.
I particularly like the way Edgar varies her tone throughout the collection. There are wry poems, and downright funny ones, and there are the passionate, the sorrowing, and the resigned ones. The style varies too. There are poems that rhyme and poems that don’t. There are three-line poems, a four-page poem, and even a bunch of sonnets. There are story poems and there are ones I’d describe as reflections. The imagery is generally accessible – at least it is to those of us who have lived (are living) similar lives in similar places. She invests the places and objects of our lives with meaning. There’s the woman, for example, who upsizes –
She tries a sea change, a tree change,
an elevated view change
(from “The Leavings”)
– losing, in the process, “her ghosts/ghosts of her children’s cries”. The doggerel-like rhyme and rhythm here are perfect for what Edgar clearly sees as the woman’s silly decision. Other poems speak of chairs that know our lives (“The Life of Chairs”), roll-top desks that trace a family’s history (“A Family Servant”), and of course the gardens that provide “refuge from summer’s sultry hours” (“Two Gardens”).
The poems are unmistakeably Australian with their references to the bush and of course gums, to wattlebirds and magpies, to drought and the pleasures of rain that only dry places know.
My favourite poems, though, are those scattered throughout that chronicle her relationship, at least they feel autobiographical, with her husband/lover/partner/significant other. They are often addressed to “you”. These poems speak of a long and deep love, but one also peppered, as real love is, with differences and squabbles. These poems made me smile, even where they spoke of loss, because they are honest.
Nearly halfway through the collection is a poem that starts:
I wonder where the poems went,
I used to think them heaven-sent.
Life is cluttered with noise and news
(from “Turn Off the Noise”)
Well, the poems are still here and I’d happily recommend Edgar’s collection as the perfect one to dip into whenever you want a respite from “noise and news”. These aren’t difficult poems, but that doesn’t mean they are trivial. Try them, if you can, and you’ll see what I mean.
Suzanne Edgar
The love procession
Port Adelaide: Ginninderra Press, 2012
107pp.
ISBN: 9781740277754
Whispering Gums 
I think I’d like this one.
I think you would too …
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Great to see your review of Sue Edgar’s second poetry collection. I agree that the poems don’t put barriers up to understanding, but are far from trivial or slight. Amongst my favourites are those with a repeated refrain, such as ‘After Drought’, and the title poem, which I understand was read in Italian at the launch!
Ah yes, thanks Dorothy. I would love to have talked about the style more because she does mix it up. I loved the way that little bit of doggerel popped into the poem I quoted in the review. And yes, she uses repetition nicely in several of the poems as you say.
Hearing that first poem read in Italian at the launch was fun … Italian is one of my favourite languages for sound, not that I can read more than the odd word.
This is a PS to my last comment, also an apology for causing confusion. I seem to have gained another name owing to my attempt to use Gravatar… Dorothy Johnston
I knew who you were! I saw your comment under the new name on ANZLitLovers … Managing all this stuff can be quite mystifying, I must say.
Whispering Gums,
Thank you for this marvellous review.
You say, `who on earth would want to read what I write?’
Well, I for one! and I hope many others do too.
Thank you so much for your heartfelt, well thought out and well expressed review (reader response) of my book, The Love Procession. Such responses are meat and drink to writers because we write to communicate and that is a two-way process.
Thank you also for attending the launch of the book at Manning Clark House, Canberra, in December. Others can obtain the book from the publisher’s website or, in Canberra, at Paperchain bookshop; or, in Adelaide, from Imprints bookshop.
(n.b. the book’s title poem is `Corteo d’amore’; and Dorothy Johnston’s surname is spelt with a `t’.)
Glad you liked my write-up Suzanne … I know I’ll be dipping into the book many times over the years.
Hmmm … Seems I have trouble with my ‘t’s’! I will fix those.
A very nice review – I don’t often read poetry books but this sounds well worthwhile. Wikimedia Commons seems to have a copyright free version of the painting here http://goo.gl/ybDZ0 – what a wonderful piece of art
Thanks Tom … and this is a poetry book aimed right at our generation (not that it doesn’t also have a wider audience, but people in middle age would particularly relate to it I think).
Thanks for giving the link to the painting … I meant to look for that but got distracted by writing about the poems!
Thank you, acommonreaderuk , for making the image of `Corteo d’amore’ (part of the Renaissance exhibition @ the National Gallery of Aust last summer) available to other readers of this blog. The picture was so arresting I went 4 times to see it. Originally it was one half of an illustration on the lid of a wedding chest containing gifts for the couple to be married.
And thanks for that added info Suzanne – it all helps our understanding.
How beautiful. I’ve just been over to see the painting and it is truly inspiring (and one of Beatrice d’Este retreat sites is near our house so WG if you are even in northern Italy a visit is promised!) I love the lyricism and everyday touch of the poems – seems like a very enjoyable collection.
One of Catherine? How many did she have? I’d love to visit it. Glad you like the poem excerpts. It is a lovely collection that I expect to dip into again and again.
I was wondering what the painting looked like so I am glad for the commenter who provided the link to it! It is beautiful though everyone looks so solemn, marriage is serious business! The poetry collection sounds lovely. I liked the excerpts especially the one from “The Leavings.”
I thought you’d like it Stefanie. That leavings one is particularly good because those lines represent a little change of pace/tone from the rest without losing the point of this woman’s leavings which result in the loss of some of the important things.
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