Fiona Benson

This really, REALLY knocked me for a loop, Fiona Benson's [Vertigo & Ghost], which was both amazing and totally harrowing. The first half is like the dark side of all those great Greek myth retellings—a cycle of poems about Zeus in which he is (as he was), a rapist and predator who eventually meets his own violent fate. The second half is presumably autobiographical, about sadness and the natural world and childbirth and the terrible places the mind goes when you pay attention to what's going on in the world when you have small children in your care. There's a good amount of violence against women and children and even some animals here—none of it gratuitous, it's all appropriate to what she's got to say—and it's hard reading. But also often beautiful, and incredibly rewarding if you can handle it. She's a fantastic poet. "Fly" is one of those things where a poem fits my skin absolutely and precisely at this moment, and I am copying it out at least twice (my copy is a library book).… (mehr)