Review: Mid Lands by Kate Bingham
Poetry London, Autumn issue 58 Oct. 2007 (extract taken from 'The First XI' pamphlet rewiews)
Two voices speak the poems in Mid Lands, by Jacqueline Gabbitas: one a grown up, self conscious voice of enquiry (contemporary poetry¹s RP) and one a voice from childhood, written in dialect. Mid Lands is worth reading for this second voice alone. Shitspiders¹, a compellingly detailed account of underground creepy-crawlies, is disgusting and delightful at the same time, made poignant by its coal-miner narrator¹s refrain And thi¹ wa¹ gold!¹:
Thi were like a seam
we could chip bits offa for a wedding ring or a tooth.
But thi wa¹ movin¹! In an¹ out of t¹shite we¹d left months ago.
Her dialect poems are grounded in a feeling of found¹ authenticity, but Gabbitas is interested in more than mere ventriloquism. As the pamphlet¹s first, manifesto, poem Field¹ makes clear, she¹s not a tourist¹ but fully resident in both voices, both selves, and like other so-to-speak bilingual poets (Kathleen Jamie springs to mind) aware of the complicated gifts this dual nationality can bring.
Elsewhere, in fine and lovely poems with conventional spellings, Gabbitas turns a well schooled hand to everyday objects butcher¹s block, locket, doll, pebble almost scientifically examining their image-bearing qualities as poets do. In Wildflowers¹, Gutter¹, Osterglocken¹, and Enten¹ a similar approach holds up individual words to the light of poetic investigation, suggesting that, whichever voice she uses, Gabbitas¹ true subject is language itself.
© Poetry London 2007
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