Liquid Amber Press (2024)
Reviewed by Jane Frank, StylusLit.
Cathy Altmann’s third collection of poetry reminds the reader that the act of being in the moment conjures possibilities of meaning and joy beyond the boundary of the self. These are poems that emerged from the experience of Long COVID where the poet has stated that ‘little details in the people and the world around me were more precious.’ These are poems that listen as much as speak.
Altmann has two previous collections, both published by Poetica Christi Press: things we know without naming (2018) and Circumnavigation (2014) that won the FAW Anne Elder Award.
Arranged in five sections, Altmann’s poems progress from morning to night, following the trajectory of the poet’s year. In the first section titled ‘Light and Luminosity,’ loose spider webs that don’t connect are likened to
first drafts, flimsy
lines left in the
branches, the night’s
work? [3]
and there are visitations by a host of other creatures in ‘Visitation’ [6-9] — mynahs, butterflies, spider and mantis.
Faith is core to these poems, and the opening epigraph is soli deo gloria, a Latin phrase meaning Glory to God alone.The poet recognises the godliness of other forms of life. In ‘The Frogmouth’ (50-51), for example, ‘only the tawny frogmouth / has the mind of God …’ Trees are ‘ziplines of joy’ [53] and in ‘The Language of Trees’ [13-14]:
… stream towards
me with a
voice like rushing
waters, holy
as fire, cold
and sweet.
Altmann writes using fluid free verse in short lines with little variation in form yet this is fresh, lucid work studded with pale, shimmering and sometimes otherworldly motifs and images, whether it is ‘garnets, flashing white’ in ‘Tidemarks’ [22]; a ‘soft, flightiness of white sound’ in ‘Plane Tree’ [12]; ‘white crosses, fly[ing] / like flocks’ in ‘Ceasefire’ [ 35]; ‘a finger on ivory’ in ‘Petticoat, 1968 [36] or ‘the whitened sepulchre’ in ‘The Piazza’ [39].
There are nods to ancient history such as in ‘Patmos’ [23]:
Odysseus looked
past here to Troy; Daedalus
swooped down, sad
to see his son’s fingers
under waves
There are also references to other poets including a reference to Joy Harjo and ‘ancestors who know the country of the stars’ in ‘Thorns’ [63-64]. ‘Laundromat,’ [18] is a poem after Jordie Albiston’s The Fall (White Crane Press, 2003) and a stand-out poem in the collection:
All these things that
are me and not-me
in your poetry:
… Whatever
words we fling, the
wave lands at our own
private beach. …
… The
waves turn like
industrial clothes dryers
in the laundromat near
Lygon.
I enjoyed this simple but effective use of metaphor and the way the poet finds beauty in ordinary rhythms so the cadences of life echo in the regular pace of the poems, sensitive to sound, texture and mood to express sentiments about illness, grief, displacement and human longing, creating beautiful interconnections.
In the excellent poem, ‘Space Stations’ [58-59], grief is likened to ‘black triffids’ that
wake up, like
a hand passing over
a group of anemones —
they strain their tuberous
bodies upward, thirsting.
The triffids in this poem ‘mill’ and ‘become kamikaze birds,’ ‘visit space stations’ in a poem bursting with thought-provoking imagery and strangeness in the face of prayer.
Another poem that particularly stood out is ‘Arthur Boyd’s Home’ [69-70] in the final section called ‘That Hour of Night’ where the artist’s house is a hive:
… is honey-coloured
the dome rising
to a cupola
edged with rectangles
of white light
The subject of one of Boyd’s paintings is ‘half human / half bee.’
There are other gentle moments of amusement, including in ‘My Mother the Moon’ [61-62], where, amid a domestic scene, the mother
In her white
coat … ascends the
ironing board
nuzzles the
dog stars (heavens!)
…
she’s crooning
over a screaming child
(oh yes darling)
blue skivvy
grey trakkies
(doesn’t matter
two hoots)
What might seem mundane is brought vividly to life.
These are quiet poems of strength, observation and survival. There is a coolness and calmness to this poetry that may work as a mediation for the reader and help still a relentlessly paced world. Altmann’s wish is that is brings readers to a place of healing and connection. If the collection were a colour, it would be a pale shade of green-blue infused with lemon yellow light.