Hand & Skull

Zoë 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.

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.’

• 9 Alfred Stieglitz: Georgia O’Keeffe, Hands and Horse Skull11 Blind Horse Elegy13 Poem for Emily Doe14 Undressing Poem15 Letter from Georgia O’Keeffe16 Poem on the Edge17 Letter from a Sheep Skull18 Dryad19 Dressing Poem20 Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass21 Letter from Tess Durbeyfield22 Forgetting Poem25 Victoria Brookland: Horse27 Letter to a Horse’s Head28 Poem with a Least Favourite Dress29 Revolver30 Western Union31 Poem with a Whalebone Crinoline32 The Eye in the Wall33 The Shave34 Hand & Breast35 Post Colonial36 Beatitudes for the Women38 Poem with Seams39 Victoria Brookland: Vésuviennes40 Letter to Leda on Getting Married41 Poem with a Wedding Dress42 Swan43 Rare44 Syringe45 Round Trip46 White Patio with a Red Door47 Vésuviennes48 Poem with a High Waist49 The Amish Roofers50 Poem with Stockings and Suspenders51 Victoria Brookland: I too am a rare pattern53 Letter from Edna Pontellier54 Star / Sun / Snow56 Eagle Poem57 Name Poem58 Poem with a Mourning Dress59 Letter from Nemi61 Beatitude for the Meek62 He Has a John Clare Chin63 Tree with Cut Limb64 My Last Beatitude65 Hand & Skull69 Notes70 Acknowledgements71 Thanks