Girl in the Air
De Vries’ debut pamphlet speaks of a sensibility that is at once patient and instinctual; the arresting images and memories which structure these pieces appear to have been thoroughly and attentively lived before being set to paper, as though the author were eager to calibrate her language to the precise emotional reality of her subjects. In weaker debutantes, this process could result in a sense of belatedness or anxiety, but de Vries’ words flow with a natural ease and economy.
This process of emotional honing makes the poems extraordinarily suggestive. As 'Latitude 50:50 North, Longitude 0:06 West' puts it, we are 'Among the vast mechanics of tiny things'. Each piece is at once precise and singular, resonating with hidden narratives which the reader is invited to complete. The poems present us with a series of filmic happenings, such as a helicopter coming to land next to Granny’s rose-bed, which are rendered in the most well-honed and economical language, and often suggest a wider, unspecified context which the reader is forced to imagine. The pieces are thus both mystifying and empowering to the reader, being emotional revelations even as they conceal what are perhaps wider trajectories in the author’s life.
ISBN 0-9542443-9-7
£6 plus £4 p&p
ARABIC
one pomegranate fell
it was evening
in our yellow trees
sweet mouthed
and loose lipped
I spoke a language
wet with seeds
that written down
would loop and staff
and dot
