The Virtues of Simplicity... and one cryptic overgrowth

Here we have poetry by five women. The most artful, Patricia Avery, her motifs glass, ice, crystal, reflections, mirrors, water, waves, ocean, I find obscure. In absolute contrast is the work of Susan Schwartz, simply expressed, crystal clear, yet subtle, and full of striking images.

These are the poems of a woman for the time being engrossed in the care of her family, realising how fast her young years slip away. The family is at the centre of more than half; the rest are portraits, landscapes, political satires, intelligent, assured. Let no one think she has sunk into motherhood like a featherbed. The sequence The Unborn ChildSpeaks to the Sea, which gives the book its title, is honest, tender, objective, triumphant, as it follows the first realisations of pregnancy from instinctive recoil to joyful acceptance, and the title poem, which has already found its way into an anthology for children, one would like to quote in full if space allowed. The consciousness is the child’s, a whale in her mother’s belly, ocean within ocean, as her mother swims.