Absence that disorientates, Abegail Morley's The Unmapped Woman

Some poets evolve by venturing into new subjects, new narratives, new locations. Others, meanwhile, burrow further and further into their core concerns, casting different perspectives on similar themes, grappling with them in fresh ways, layering them, building their nuances and ramifications.

Abegail Morley’s recent development, from her previous collection, The Skin Diary (Nine Arches Press, 2016) to her new book, The Unmapped Woman (Nine Arches Press, 2020), shows that she clearly belongs to the latter group. Her focus on loss, already a pivotal element, has now expanded its reach, its depth and its power to move the reader.

One clear example occurs in the opening pages to The Unmapped Woman, in the first lines of a poem titled Gravid. They can, of course, be read as the portrayal of a moment, of an incident. However, they can also be read as a declaration of poetic intent for the collection as a whole. They announce an exploration of the relationship between language and loss:

Not until after the front door slams shut

and absence sucks air from its cheeks,

do the words in her head, packed tight

as if on postcards, unhook their ink…

Moreover, when comparing The Skin Diary to The Unmapped Woman, one clear evolution is the scope of Morley’s ambition, her juxtaposition of varying losses, her demonstration that they’re united by key aspects such as dislocation via the disappearance of a sense of belonging. People anchor us. Their absence disorientates us and leaves us wondering who we are. This is clearly represented by the title to the new collection, as expressed in the closing lines of Where you used to be:

…When I go, I’ll unmap myself from this world,

tug pins like stitches, watch them stretch and snap.

The Unmapped Woman unfurls via a growing tension between the past and the present. This tension demands to be faced prior to any potential reconciliation between the two, and the consequent struggle is beautifully evoked in On having enough messages from the dead:

Your name is paperweighted to my tongue.

Each time I try to lift it, it bangs to the floor

of my mouth, bulky as a sandbag,

or an iron girder from that old advert…

The above extract also provides the reader with an excellent example of Morley’s technical virtues: her natural rhythms, delicate control of line endings and supercharging of specific, unusual verbs.

As The Unmapped Woman draws to a close, it gradually turns into an implicit revindication of the role of language in dealing with loss and absence, poetry becoming a means of overcoming emotional dislocation. Abegail Morley’s work reminds us that we can deal with the present and the future thanks to the verbal and artistic expression of the past. These are poems that not only embrace life but encourage us to do so too.

Mat Riches at The Poetry Shed

Over at The Poetry Shed, Abegail Morley's astute editorial eye has selected a terrific poem by Mat Riches for publication today. You can read it by following this link.

Abegail Morley reviews The Knives of Villalejo

I've long admired Abegail Morley's verse and her site, The Poetry Shed, so I'm especially pleased and grateful to see her outstanding review of The Knives of Villalejo posted there today. While over at the Poetry Shed, I thoroughly recommend you have a lengthy browse through the treasure trove of original poems, features and reviews in its archive.

An exciting new poetry pamphlet publisher

The emergence of a new poetry pamphlet publisher is always good news. In the case of Against the Grain Poetry Press, that excitement is compounded by the names that are behind it - Abegail Morley, Jessica Mookherjee and Karen Dennison - and a terrific initial statement of intent (see here). What's more, their submissions window is now open...

Five poems in The Poetry Shed

I'm very grateful to Abegail Morley for featuring five of my poems in The Poetry Shed today (see here). All of them are from The Knives of Villalejo, my forthcoming first full collection. My pieces at And Other Poems last week revolved around the theme of home, while these five in The Poetry Shed focus on loss.

Chronicles of loss, Abegail Morley's The Skin Diary

Imagine and imaginary are key words in The Skin Diary (Nine Arches Press, 2016), Abegail Morley’s new collection, and provide a hint to her poetics. However, far from being a flight of fancy, this book is rooted in human experience, as the imaginary turns real and the real imaginary.

Morley writes of an imaginary sister, an imaginary friend, an imaginary photo, all in an attempt to express what cannot be expressed and understand what cannot be understood. Here’s an example of her method from “Childhood”:

“…Her life is stored in a house of ruins

she’s rebuilding brick by brick. If you visit tomorrow

she’ll feed you fairy cakes on white china plates,

pour tea from an imagined pot.”

Imagination is here seen as a technique for dealing with everyday experience, while its inherent risks and dangers are never far away, as in “The Blame”:

“…Tonight I hear you stumble up steps,

four years after. Short shadows on brickwork thicken –

if I was prone to fancy, I would imagine you here.”

As both these pieces indicate, loss and how we wrestle with loss are pivotal themes that resonate throughout this collection, reaching their culmination in its closing poems. The collection reaches its crescendo when Morley homes in on a specific narrative that raises the tension even higher than on previous pages. One of her fundamental poems is “Package”:

“…I didn’t know something so small could change

My day, so opened the gift without ceremony, didn’t expect

his dried-out soused diary to unhug itself from the envelope.

No letter from the coroner, just river-rippled A5 pages.”

Of course, these lines turn on Morley’s use of “unhug”, implicitly leading us towards the speaker’s solitude and afore-mentioned loss.

The Skin Diary moves the reader on every page, but its final poems will cling to the mind forever. They are a chronicle of survival amid excruciating mental and emotional pain. Never depressing but always life-affirming, Abegail Morley’s thematic courage works in tandem with her poetic craft to bring us a memorable collection.  Her diary flows into ours and we emerge enriched.

Richie McCaffery in The Poetry Shed

Abegail Morley is the curator of a veritable treasure trove of verse over at The Poetry Shed. Today she's featuring two excellent pieces by Richie McCaffery (see here). A warning: once read, they'll defy any attempt to banish them from your mind for a long time to come.

Abegail Morley's blog

I'm delighted to be the current Featured Poet over at Abegail Morley's excellent blog. She's generously showcasing two poems from Inventing Truth, 01252 722698 and Epilogue, and you can read them here.

Abegail's well known as both a top-notch poet and editor, while her blog archive provides an ideal introduction to the work of many terrific poets. I very much recommend a leisurely look through it and have added her blog to the roll on Rogue Strands so as to keep up with new posts.