Carrie Etter reviews The Book of Blood by Vicki Feaver

The Book of Blood brings together a wide array of poems by a mature storyteller. Descriptive yet taut, these poems predominantly relate stories of women and of the natural world, the titular blood relating to ancestry as well as violence.

The poems about women, whether real or mythical, often portray them as unruly victims. Cinderella, in the poem of that title, has come to revel in her housework, enjoying “fire /and the pictures in fire” (much like Dickens’s Lizzie Hexam) and pressing her dirty body against clean sheets not only to “print the shapes of grief” but also to rebel against her position. Another fairy tale renegade is Little Red Riding Hood, who relishes sexy red lipstick, “ruby high heels,” pink gin, and scarlet dreams (“Girl in Red”).

These feminist renditions work towards presenting the women more positively: the apparently vanquished Cinderella has some spirit, Little Red emerges as a femme fatale in training, and in “Medea’s Little Brother,” Medea’s violence arises not from her own impulse, but unwilling obedience to her husband’s desires. Yet despite this ostensibly empowering revision, all in all the women appear subdued, their potential ferocity ultimately rather tame. Because the portrayal of Medea provides no real interiority, her struggle between her feelings for her brother and her feelings for her husband is unconvincing, and while Cinderella appears locked in a cycle of work and ineffectual rebellion, Little Red’s eventual tragedy leads to the utter destruction of her drive, such that after all that rich red dreaming, now she “dream[s] in black.”

Contemporary women fare better, usually succeeding in their struggles. In “Pills,” the woman resists swallowing the pills her partner would have her take, and her increasing awareness materialises in the vivid colours she perceives in the world. Throughout The Book of Blood, one’s immersion in life indicates fulfilment, whether it’s the female of the species in “Glow-Worm,” the risky pleasure of late love in “Gorge,” or a young man’s anticipation of the pleasures of beer and a girl’s body in “Cyclist.”

The aforementioned poems persuade, but others suggest that, by itself, immersion offers only limited sustenance. “Spider” bores, and the tender moment that ends the collection seems rather slight given the title and the women’s conflicts therein:

the two blues—the heavenly blue
of the butterfly

the smoky blue of earth’s
deepest caverns—

     meeting in mid-kiss.

(“The Blue Butterfly”)

“Bats” is the volume’s true apex, its most compelling answer, taking the difficulties of aging into account alongside the desire for redemption. In this deftly realised poem, the grandmother’s nurturing instinct manifests in her wish to nurse one of the young bats. Yet she accepts that while she has aged beyond that kind of attention to “the flesh of our flesh,” she nurtures and is nurtured in the act of sex. The longing to care for one’s own blood persists, unresolved, while she gives another kind of care to her partner. The Book of Blood is strongest when it thus accommodates both appreciation and complexity, putting Feaver’s intelligence and lyricism to their best use.

The Book of Blood, £9.00, Jonathan Cape, ISBN 022407684

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