Description
Book Synopsis"Commandments", Jackie Wills' fourth collection, is arguably her strongest to date. Here are poems of love and disenchantment, poems about landscapes, both familiar and unfamiliar, poems in which the poet, with her acute powers of observation, looks at the 'ordinary' and redraws it in an extraordinary, even a disturbing, way. "Commandments" is divided into two distinct parts. The first part has two main points of focus: one is the Ten Commandments, each of which Jackie Wills re-states with such sensitivity and understanding that the impact is sometimes overwhelming; the other is the poet herself in poems which look inward but which have a universal relevance. The 'commandment' poems and what the poet refers to as the 'me' poems interweave in this first section to extraordinary effect. By contrast, the second part of the book consists of a cycle of landscape poems, largely about Wills' home territory, Brighton and its environs.
Table of ContentsPart I: The birds sing about water / Honour one god / Love song for Fidel Castro / Don't make idols / The other woman / Don't take my name in vain / Impala / Day of rest / Girls / Honour your father and mother / Alphabetic / Don't kill / Mind museum / Don't commit adultery / Women of affairs / Don't steal / A life of sin / Don't lie / Her promises / Don't covet your neighbour's goods / Leaving it to the cuckoos / The islands / Face / My mother's half / The me who drinks too much / Her fangs, her horns / The me who's a wish / Ravine / The me who's a mother / Inured / The me who won't be civilised / Pieces of her / Waiting / Her sleepless nights / Fire-eater / Letter / The oldest kingdom / Desire / Crawling on pebbles. PART II: For a path of 12 circular stepping stones / Concerns of a mature woman / How long could you stretch a summer? / Salmonskin coat / Theatre / A day in November / Appeasement / Whitehawk / Cuckmere Haven / Suspended / Improvisation / Where I live . Biographical note.
