my name is abilene

Elisabeth Sennitt Clough is the author of Glass (Saboteur Best Pamphlet Award), Sightings (Michael Schmidt Award), At or Below Sea Level (PBS Recommendation) and The Cold Store. Her poems appear in Poem, The Forward Book of Poetry 2018, The Rialto, Mslexia, Wasafiri, Magma, The Cannon’s Mouth and Stand among others. Elisabeth is editor of the Fenland Poetry Journal. @FenlandJ www.elisabethsennittclough.co.uk @LizSennitt

The collection opens by establishing the pattern of the maternal aspect of abilene’s intergenerational trauma, a history already too well-established to be readily slipped. Not that abilene is an easy victim caricature, unable to kick out or attempt to challenge her fate. Sennitt Clough’s characterisation is far too rounded for that. The not fitting-in locally, the learned cruelty, the superficial gentrification of the first section all rise towards the shockingly brilliant revelation of ‘When I Talk About Codes’. Without giving away the poem’s content, that titular capitalisation is the first use of uppercase type in the book. Typically, in this collection, the poem’s structure speaks as sharply as its words.