Milk Fever
Kaddy Benyon(Author)
Salt Publishing
Published on 22. November 2012
Book
Hardback
80 pages
978-1-84471-904-4 (ISBN)
Description
Milk Fever is a prize-winning first collection from a new voice in contemporary British poetry. The poet's former career as a television scriptwriter for young adults is evident in the fresh, unguarded and intimate address that moves seamlessly between tenderness and brutality in poems largely concerning experiences of motherhood: the joy, the passion and the delight of this unique mother-child dyad paired with shadowy twins - terror, despair and rage.
The poems are urgent and sensual, even when mothers are not human beings: an eagle, a copper mine and a windmill are all given a maternal voice in a collection which searches the world for reunion with a lost other; a lost mother perhaps, or as in the Persephone and Demeter myth, a lost daughter.
The poems travel through Chile, Italy, Russia, ancient Greece, Argentina and France in an attempt to explore the timeless and universal relationship, or variants of it, we all have with our mothers, the relationship that is the blueprint for all our future relationships. This is a collection for, against and about mother, for all that she is and everything we try to pretend she isn't.
The poems are urgent and sensual, even when mothers are not human beings: an eagle, a copper mine and a windmill are all given a maternal voice in a collection which searches the world for reunion with a lost other; a lost mother perhaps, or as in the Persephone and Demeter myth, a lost daughter.
The poems travel through Chile, Italy, Russia, ancient Greece, Argentina and France in an attempt to explore the timeless and universal relationship, or variants of it, we all have with our mothers, the relationship that is the blueprint for all our future relationships. This is a collection for, against and about mother, for all that she is and everything we try to pretend she isn't.
Reviews / Votes
Benyon can produce truly startling metaphors (like "the ticking crucifixion" of Mother as a Windmill) and her talent for earthy language lends itself well to the erotic in pieces such as Poem #87, Call it Love and (Not) Penelope's Web. She is a new poet worth watching. -- Andrew Neilson * Magma * Benyon can produce truly startling metaphors (like "the ticking crucifixion" of Mother as a Windmill) and her talent for earthy language lends itself well to the erotic in pieces such as Poem #87, Call it Love and (Not) Penelope's Web. She is a new poet worth watching. -- Andrew Neilson * Magma *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Not illustrated
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84471-904-4 (9781844719044)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Kaddy Benyon was born and raised in East Anglia. She worked as a television scriptwriter before having children. She has been publishing poetry since 2010 when she was also shortlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize and the inaugural Picador Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, websites and anthologies and in 2012 she won the Crashaw Prize, became a Granta New Poet, an Agenda Chosen Young Poet and came third in the Mslexia Poetry Competition. She is currently Invited Poet at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge where she is writing her next collection.
Content
Riptide
Fitzwilliam Selkie
Maman
Cuttings
Be Prepared to Bleed
Pomegranate & Pin
Strange Fruit
Memory in Red
Milk Fever
Ice Fishing
Night Pirate
Palm House
Holy Water (I)
Coppering
Mine or Pachamama's Empty Nest
Firekeepers
Los Ninos
Sun Virgin
Boy
Lightning Girl
The Death Collector
My American Parents
Poem #87
Our Lady
Holy Water (II)
Communion
Call it Love
Mummy
Sirius
Cold Dark Matter
Among Women
Your Question
Confession
Confirmation
Body Language
Mummy Bare Legs
Local History
Martha
Holy Water (III)
Cradle Cap
Hairball
The Desk at Varykino
The Wolves at Varykino
Ice Recital
Ever After
Camera Obscura
Again
Mother as a Windmill
Holy Water (IV)
Loveblind Fool
Idol
In Vitro Heuresis
Bumble Boy
Easter
Undone
(Not) Penelope's Web
I do
I undo
I redo
Fitzwilliam Selkie
Maman
Cuttings
Be Prepared to Bleed
Pomegranate & Pin
Strange Fruit
Memory in Red
Milk Fever
Ice Fishing
Night Pirate
Palm House
Holy Water (I)
Coppering
Mine or Pachamama's Empty Nest
Firekeepers
Los Ninos
Sun Virgin
Boy
Lightning Girl
The Death Collector
My American Parents
Poem #87
Our Lady
Holy Water (II)
Communion
Call it Love
Mummy
Sirius
Cold Dark Matter
Among Women
Your Question
Confession
Confirmation
Body Language
Mummy Bare Legs
Local History
Martha
Holy Water (III)
Cradle Cap
Hairball
The Desk at Varykino
The Wolves at Varykino
Ice Recital
Ever After
Camera Obscura
Again
Mother as a Windmill
Holy Water (IV)
Loveblind Fool
Idol
In Vitro Heuresis
Bumble Boy
Easter
Undone
(Not) Penelope's Web
I do
I undo
I redo