Call and Response

Rachel Spence, Emma Dai'an Wright

• Publisher: The Emma Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781912915484
• eBook ISBN: 9781912915477
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Call and Response is a sequence of sonnets from the perspective of a daughter, addressed to her mother during her mother's illness. Hard-edged yet tender, the poems explore the darker side of familial bonds and the strange ways suffering can heal old wounds.

January 2013.

Commercial Street. Traffic fumes cauterising

the day to twilight. I’m between a broken

boiler and a visa application for a country

I can’t afford to visit. Your voice like stale

water dammed too long. You didn’t come

for Christmas and now the neighbours think

we are estranged. I’m done, Mum, really, done.

My phone sliding into the ninth circle

of misunderstood daughters. The queue

for visas Bablyonian – so many different faces.

All with mothers! And once again you’re

buzzing at my hip. Darling, how’s your boiler?

And once again, we’re on.

March. My lover’s kiss has framed my day

with light. Spring’s diligent percussion

greening the tree outside my window.

The words flow freely, stitching me

into the morning’s warp and weft. I’ve never

told you, have I, that sometimes when I write

it feels like letting blood. What haven’t you

told me? What have we never asked?

Not now, Mum. But your voice is different.

Old-lady fear fluttering like a baby bird’s.

You waited how long before going to a doctor?

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul

that not your madness but my trespass speaks.

The day no longer numinous. But we’re still on.

April. The relief of finding you perched

on your hospital bed. Lipsticked and cashmered.

Defiantly undimmed. Twelve hours post-op,

you’ve drunk them out of tea and think you’d like

to go now. Nurses calling you the Steve Redgrave

of patients. Your healing seeded centuries

ago, tough as the ash trees fighting

their way through frost-bitten Polish soil,

hunger for a better life incubating

in clogged, shtetl light. And yes, I’m proud to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other Books From The Emma Press
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prequel
• Call and Response
• Sequel
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• About The Poet
• The Emma Press