Elizabeth Bartlett's poetry

I’ve been putting off this post for months, all because I’m acutely aware that the format of a blog post means I can’t do the subject matter sufficient justice. As a consequence, I’ve decided to provide something of a point of departure for my readers in the hope that you’ll then pick up the baton.

Let’s cut to the chase: in the view of this blogger, Elizabeth Bartlett is one of the most remarkable poets to have emerged in the U.K. in the second half of the twentieth century.  

Why is she so little-known? Why is my copy of her new and selected poems, Two Women Dancing (Bloodaxe Books, 1995) a never-opened review copy with a little yellowed slip from the publisher still inside, plaintively stating “We would appreciate a copy of any review or mention you might give this book”? Why has there barely been any mention of her on Google since her death in 2008?

Numerous arguments can be put forward, some of them overlapping, none of them conclusive. First off is the old chestnut of her work not quite fitting into any group or school. It does contain elements of the aesthetic of the Movement, but her thematic scope and forthright attitude to emotion, alongside her acute approach to form (metrics hovering over every line like a ghost), mean that such comparisons fall short.

Several attempts, meanwhile, to shoehorn her poetry into labels of “working-class feminist” or “amateur poet” sell her writing short on every count. Firstly, her lightly-worn erudition underpins all her work. Secondly, her focus on female characters is her personal expression of the human and social condition rather than a political stance. What is true, however, is that Elizabeth Bartlett’s poetry would probably be far better known if she’d been a man.

At this point, having made a theoretical case, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. What are the main themes in Bartlett’s poetry? Well, they range from taking the Mickey out of the (mainly male) poetry establishment to monologues in the voices of the social underclass via Bartlett’s professional experiences as an employee of the NHS, while also stopping off to pare back assigned roles in tortured love affairs.

Here are a couple of quotes as examples of the above. To start with, a startling opening to a startling poem, titled ’This Room’…

Since you took me by the hand

and led me to my mother’s unmade bed,

I have never got it right with men.

I remember the pale sun lighting up

the flowered wallpaper, the counterpane…

And here, in ’Stretch Marks’, she’s brilliant on those male poets…

…Mostly they teach, and some must be

fathers, but they have no stretch marks

on their smooth stomachs to prove it.

At least we know our children

are our own. They can never really

tell, but poems they can be sure of.

And in ’Quite a Day’, she takes on the voice of a young mother who’s being visited by a social worker:

You didn’t say you liked my house.

You just sat down, asking questions,

legs crossed at the ankles, removing

the toddler’s hands from your clip-board.

I had washed the coloured crayon marks

off the walls for you, and scrubbed

the rush matting so it smelled as sweet

as summertime in far away Norfolk,

and herded the cats into the garden

so they shouldn’t tear your tights…

Elizabeth Bartlett deserves a full-blown feature in a major journal, she deserves critical attention, she deserves wider recognition. I can’t manage any of that with this blog post. However, she also deserves readers and maybe, just maybe, I can gain her one or two. If you want to try, I thoroughly recommend that you start with Two Women Dancing. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.