Discovering a new voice

A Review by Jim C Mackintosh

Thoughts from JIM MACKINTOSH on Remembering Myself by Donna Matthew Seahorse Publications (2024) £10

We gather in the cafes, the jumble of back rooms or the occasional overly harsh spotlight in search of the tentative touchdown of truth where it co-exists with the rest of our family of wanderings. We gather to hear the simple but sincere outpourings of those who would be called poets. Sometimes we are obliged to grip the edge of the table, plant our hearts a little firmer and then inhale a precious moment, luminous and profound enough to revive our cynical exhaustion – the search for raw connection and artistic truth that are out there yet to be found: incorruptible melodic energies shaped by a life lived through their own wanderings. Occasionally we find something worthy of the gatherings, a salvation for the hours and miles and in that discovery we find the essence of learned structure and crafted spirit to make it all worthwhile.

In Donna Matthew I found this to be worth the journey.

I knew from the moment I watched her reach out to the audience one sunny afternoon in Stonehaven this was a poet of essence. This was a voice honestly sharing her story and hungry for air and for sunlight willing to welcome her presence with a light film of acceptance. One she humbly yet assuredly embraced.

Many people will brave the naked darkness in front of strangers with eyes closed, hearts open and their words offered for sacrifice in the void between microphone and the dust of previous offerings in the gloom at the edge of the stage. This was not that. This was one of those moments when I knew I was listening to a poet who had found her way. The rhythm of her words, not just the passion of her delivery but the individual pace and choice of words.

This was a moment I had found a new poet. Not that she was lost – maybe she was in some sense if the subsequent title of her first book of poems was anything to go by. I hadn’t been the only person to take note of Matthew’s poetry, and it wasn’t long before I learned that Linda Jackson of Seahorse Publications had also connected with the poetry. The result of this new partnership would be Remembering Myself, a collection described on its rear cover by another fine poet, Victoria McNulty, as ‘a respectful ode to change with dignity in its pages’. I would later understand this praise when I read the book for myself.

To begin Remembering Myself there is a short piece entitled For Blanche which provides clues to the journey Matthew would take us on in this collection. The process of metamorphosis – the transformation from immature to adult form in nature but also in ourselves the process of discovery, the transformation of one life to another, the realisation that the one we have become is not always the one and that perhaps the true self has been there all the time. It’s just remembering where you left it. It is, however, the next poem in the collection, Beginnings, which provides the pivotal moment in the story.

I must confess to cringing when I am offered another book of self discovery from someone who in later life has found the means to commit their life to paper. It rarely works as a book of any depth but by the time I got to the end of the poem Beginnings I realised this was not one of those confessional trudges. This was crafted poetry yet still had the necessary elements of raw honesty and integrity to her story. It takes a great deal of courage to write ‘As I held in every breath because I don’t love my husband anymore. There I said it.’ yet I found myself, although with a sense of deep-rooted Scottish presbyterian intrusion nodding and muttering rather inappropriately: ‘Damn right! You go girl!’. It’s a pivotal moment so early in the narrative but all the better for it. ‘To fill my chest and spoke my poetry’ and to allow the poems that follow the stoked sadness of Primary, the tender beauty of Her Hands and after Lifelines to literally run down the street shouting ‘I’m not going back. This is me. This my story.’ As Matthew says in closing the latter, ‘So, I can sit there writing poems in my plush wee Georgian home. Owning all my truth and journey fae a single parent hoose’.

I must confess. Again! At this point in the book, I went and put the kettle on. Again! Jings, I needed a mug of tea and a reload of biscuits. I sensed the pace and rhythm would remain, the craft constant  but the direction would change. It did. The poems that followed the pivot were still in themselves recollections, yet they were told in a different way – with a clean hanky offered to a pal in the telling. So we sat together and read the weathered memories of The Tree, the hushed grief of The End, the stark Seven (still makes me angry on her behalf), the powerful brevity of Regret and the pulling together of past experiences, of our common learnings and inherited traumas in No Ceremony. I was running low on biscuits, the tea long gone as Matthew paused to reflect at the end of this poem – ‘We are hewn from generations born to plane away someone else’s regret. That’s an inheritance we can’t outrun.’.

And there it was. One of the most important elements of a poet’s efforts to engage with the reader. The ability to connect through shared experiences. To have the reader find common ground. To silently nod in solidarity with the story and to place the author’s world into one’s own narrative. Poems should be in my opinion, and certainly are in Matthew’s writings, ways of speaking truth. It was Ezra Pound (probably) or perhaps it was me who described poems as ‘words loaded with meaning’. Either way, Matthew’s work is loaded with considerable worth yet sensibly sparse in over-sentimentality. Confessional poetry is important especially to the writer but can be lost on the reader very quickly.

I had run out of biscuits and the book was only a quarter read. That’s a good thing and as I turned the page to When Nietzsche Gret it was clear the momentum was about to change. There would still be measurable truths but sparing in the use of inflated sentiment. I sensed a fresh pencil and the rolling up of sleeves. A poet at work now balancing emotion with rational thought yet I also knew if Nietzsche was in play then tea was never going to be sufficient. This needed wine.

It’s a rare thing for me to read a book of poems in one sitting. Perhaps it’s just me? – indeed Matthew answers that question in her poem Self-Possessed –‘You can rest assured, Sweetheart it probably is’ although I’m not sure many poets would expect that of their readers. So with that in mind, I put the book down until the wine chilled and I could brace myself for the inevitable resurfacing from my own shelved past of Apollonian and Dionysian philosophical discourse capable of turning the finest wines into vinegar.

Armed with my Sauvignon shield, I continued with trepidation. The reference in poetry to the Gods and their superior adventures doesn’t always work for me unless there’s a huge slice of humour on the side, but in fairness Matthew’s brief dip into this world works just fine in When Nietzsche Gret. It’s a good poem in a style reminiscent of Joelle Taylor’s - no bad thing - but also a Notice of Intention. A resetting of the story to allow her to move forward and it does this with purpose into the next poem Fuck the Id. I have said the same thing many, many times but perhaps not with as much juice telling the itching Id on my back ‘to eff off with a poetic rhyme’.

From here the collection truly finds its footing and confidence in the blank spaces on each page to join the poet ‘cross-legged, surrounded by poems all keen as offspring’ and share the weave of words and newly released energy of a poet recognising their value. The subject matters are varied from here onwards, yet they retain a through-going rhythm and a keen eye for detail without burdening the reader with spurious vocabulary just for the sake of it. There is emotional significance in the poems, yet they leave enough space for the reader to understand they have a responsibility to add to the offerings.

It’s important for me in reviewing a book that I don’t comment on every poem and in doing so leave enough curious intent for the reader to explore the collection for themselves. The second last poem in the book Words could arguably have been that last poem. It’s a struggle for every poet (and Editor) and there is no perfect answer, but in this poem there is a brief statement ‘Now when I hear a pin drop it’s followed by applause’. For Donna Matthew, I hope and indeed I’m confident this will always be the case.

She was perhaps never lost, perhaps yet to be found in herself but through Remembering Myself  has become a poet. As she writes herself, ‘But fear is a cage of the unexamined life’. Have no fear. You have they key. Unlock the door – you are a poet.