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A review of Natalia Clarke's poetry collection - Soul Land.
Loch Tay (photo by Karen Vernon)
I was looking forward to reading this poetry collection. The book’s description: “a powerful personal account through a deep and profound connection to the land of Scotland,” could almost be talking about some of my own poems (Land Songs), I thought. I am deeply homesick for Scotland, so I believe I understand something of what the poet is experiencing. Still, her lines were so intensely and analytically focused on her own feelings that the land she was writing about felt secondary to me.
You are moments of my holding breath and standing still when my heart wants to fly away to all the places that you are
You are my life’s anchor like the oldest wisdom there is directing me to stay, to act, to dream and be
You are my life as much as anything I know that I am. Made-up parts of one whole, a million of others merged together yet I can pick you apart from any other
Scotland is a big place. A varied place. But many of these poems feel more like they are addressed to something generic, to an idea of Scotland, rather than the place itself.
When the poet begins to use her powers of description, I instantly feel more touched by her emotional state, because she gives me a glimpse of what she longs for, as in “When Death Comes.”
When the poet begins to use her powers of description, I instantly feel more touched by her emotional state, because she gives me a glimpse of what she longs for, as in “When Death Comes.”
When death comes I will not shudder before its cold stare
For I have witnessed bluebell woods at spring time
I will not turn my face away from its shadowy presence as my soul remembers the smell of heather
The lace of snowdrops over the land in late winter will purify my fear
With autumn gold I will fly free into the darkness
Wonderful!
Only twice does Clarke mention a specific place - Loch Tay, or the River Tay – yet there is still no real specificity. The words aren’t enough to take me to these places. In another case (“Through The Eyes of a Highlander”) I felt this vagueness bordered on the insensitive. The title says it all, really. The person in question is reduced by this moniker to a cardboard cut-out, a familiar stereotype. Not one of us.
Only twice does Clarke mention a specific place - Loch Tay, or the River Tay – yet there is still no real specificity. The words aren’t enough to take me to these places. In another case (“Through The Eyes of a Highlander”) I felt this vagueness bordered on the insensitive. The title says it all, really. The person in question is reduced by this moniker to a cardboard cut-out, a familiar stereotype. Not one of us.
Where I see beauty he sees barren landscape
“Not what it’s meant to look like,” he says ...
No longer a place bursting with songs
The words to stories long forgotten ...
Joy is overshadowed by sadness
I get it now …
We can hold the land in reverence always, highlander and I
Ouch!
I wish that I could like this little collection more. Something by a fellow exile. I suppose this book is proof that we all see things through our own eyes, and have our own vocabulary for describing what we see.
I wish that I could like this little collection more. Something by a fellow exile. I suppose this book is proof that we all see things through our own eyes, and have our own vocabulary for describing what we see.
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