Description
Zoe Brigley's third collection Hand & Skull draws on early memories of the Welsh landscape and the harshness of rural life as well as on her later immersion in the American landscape and her perception of a sense of hollowness in particular communities there. Other strands include the horror of violence, especially violence towards women, contrasted with poems which offer comfort by working as beatitudes or commentaries on life as it exists now, seeking a way of being that is more beautiful, often in relation to her children. There are also epistolary poems, letters to or from real, imagined and remembered women like the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, Thomas Hardy's Tess, and Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
About the Author
Zoe Brigley (Thompson) grew up in Caerphilly in the Rhymney Valley of Wales, and is now an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University in the US. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2003 and received a Welsh Academy bursary in 2005. Her first book of poems, The Secret (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008. Her second collection, Conquest (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), was also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, as was her third collection, Hand & Skull (Bloodaxe Books, 2019). A book of her non-fiction essays, Notes from a Swing State, was published by Parthian Books in 2019. She also researches violence against women, and is co-editor of a volume of scholarly essays, Feminism, Literature, and Rape Narratives (Routledge, 2010). She co-edited the anthology 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren Books, 2021) with Kristian Evans.
Reviews
Hand & Skull examines the complex relationships between human and nonhuman lives as well as the ways in which gender informs these experiences. Brigley regularly uses epistolaries to establish dialogues, often addressing or personifying women of myth, literature, and history, such as Leda, Edna Pontellier, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Gender violence and violence against animals are often central concerns, but what makes the collection particularly compelling is its refusal to let tragedy be the only note it sings; many of the poems also embrace the complicated wonders of motherhood, of devotion. Hand & Skull dazzled me with its agility and subtlety, its graceful inquiry into how gender, violence, myth, devotion and the natural world braid through our lives.' -- Amie Whittemore
With Conquest, her fascinating second collection, the Welsh-born poet Zoe Brigley explores women's desires, dream and loves... Brigley deepens her expressive range as she explores diverse worlds and a shifting female cast... Via historical and mythic approaches, she highlights the vastness and intensity of women's desire, as well as the delicacy... The formal variety of Conquest serves Zoe Brigley's imaginative quest well, and includes, for instance, the prose poem, the list poem, and a variation on the double sestina. Yet the collection is without ostentation, and poems such as "The Love of a Husband" ("Because he never, ever hesitated./ Because when she shuts a window, he opens a door.") and the intricate "The Blue Rose", in memory of her English grandfather, are as heartfelt as they are beautifully judged. -- Moniza Alvi * PBS Bulletin *
Exploring sexuality and politics with imaginative subtlety, Conquest is a book about pursuit and capture and the things that elude us in the chase... What seems to interest Brigley most about pursuit is what is evaded in the chase. Her poems are full of references to the lost and the untouchable... This is a beautifully disconcerting collection, intelligent in its treatment of its themes. -- Helen Mort * Magma *
Book Information
ISBN 9781780374727
Author Zoe Brigley
Format Paperback
Page Count 64
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
About the Author
Zoe Brigley (Thompson) grew up in Caerphilly in the Rhymney Valley of Wales, and is now an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University in the US. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2003 and received a Welsh Academy bursary in 2005. Her first book of poems, The Secret (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2008. Her second collection, Conquest (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), was also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, as was her third collection, Hand & Skull (Bloodaxe Books, 2019). A book of her non-fiction essays, Notes from a Swing State, was published by Parthian Books in 2019. She also researches violence against women, and is co-editor of a volume of scholarly essays, Feminism, Literature, and Rape Narratives (Routledge, 2010). She co-edited the anthology 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren Books, 2021) with Kristian Evans.
Reviews
Hand & Skull examines the complex relationships between human and nonhuman lives as well as the ways in which gender informs these experiences. Brigley regularly uses epistolaries to establish dialogues, often addressing or personifying women of myth, literature, and history, such as Leda, Edna Pontellier, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Gender violence and violence against animals are often central concerns, but what makes the collection particularly compelling is its refusal to let tragedy be the only note it sings; many of the poems also embrace the complicated wonders of motherhood, of devotion. Hand & Skull dazzled me with its agility and subtlety, its graceful inquiry into how gender, violence, myth, devotion and the natural world braid through our lives.' -- Amie Whittemore
With Conquest, her fascinating second collection, the Welsh-born poet Zoe Brigley explores women's desires, dream and loves... Brigley deepens her expressive range as she explores diverse worlds and a shifting female cast... Via historical and mythic approaches, she highlights the vastness and intensity of women's desire, as well as the delicacy... The formal variety of Conquest serves Zoe Brigley's imaginative quest well, and includes, for instance, the prose poem, the list poem, and a variation on the double sestina. Yet the collection is without ostentation, and poems such as "The Love of a Husband" ("Because he never, ever hesitated./ Because when she shuts a window, he opens a door.") and the intricate "The Blue Rose", in memory of her English grandfather, are as heartfelt as they are beautifully judged. -- Moniza Alvi * PBS Bulletin *
Exploring sexuality and politics with imaginative subtlety, Conquest is a book about pursuit and capture and the things that elude us in the chase... What seems to interest Brigley most about pursuit is what is evaded in the chase. Her poems are full of references to the lost and the untouchable... This is a beautifully disconcerting collection, intelligent in its treatment of its themes. -- Helen Mort * Magma *
Book Information
ISBN 9781780374727
Author Zoe Brigley
Format Paperback
Page Count 64
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
