Deep in Time: Poems by Cora Greenhill [Paperback]

There is a group of moving poems about the poet's miscarriage, and a sequence (The Strength of Cups) on the difficulties of combining love, work and privacy. Of other poems, I particularly like The weaving of a gate... "you have in mind/a gate of woven willow. . . I!. . . I see gates as intentions/lifetimes in the making//. . . !/would we want our hearts' homes/knocked into shape/with nails?" But perhaps my favourite of these poems is Breathdance. "He breathes his songs through a short reed pipe./There is no knowing/What is his voice, and what the sound of the pipe.//'We don't have a word for music/in our language./Music is the same as life./ . .'/He does not smile, he is smiled,/and the light shines from us all/I am drawn to a space on the ground/danced by the songs/and the big moving airs of morning."

Greenhill has given a great deal of thought and care to the ordering of her book. The poems are set into a reasoned and satisfying progression, so that each resonates with its neighbours and in the whole scheme; as if each poem is a single line in the large-scale poem which is the completed book. It's an art in itself.

The subject matter of the work is wide-ranging, but is always connected to the experience of being a woman. The author writes with great richness about adolescence, menstruation, marriage, miscarriage and growing older. Although many of the poems have a sensitive, delicate quality, they do not shy away from the physicality of life. In 'Forty third spring', for example, aging is described earthily: "Relentless the blood aches from the shrinking womb! thrums on the slackening drum! of skin sagging dully." And in 'Prayer on the sea shore' the poet declares: "Let me receive life greedily! swallow the fat spaghetti! the rich gravel of gifts/ brought in to me on the tides."

If these poems can be seen as spiritual, which I think they can, then they are about spirituality which is very much connected to the body. As well as writing, Cora Greenhill is a dancer, and she runs dance workshops in England and Crete. It is in the poems about dancing that we see this spirit emerging from the page. 'Breathdance' tells how the poet is "drawn to a space on the ground! danced by the songs! and the big moving airs of morning." It is clear from her work, that dancing helps the poet to cope with the painful things in life, and it is with great honesty and clarity that she writes about this pain, and the liberating power of dance.

I recommend Deep in Time to anyone who loves poetry and who loves life - and if Cora is reading her work near you, then I urge you to go and see her in the poetic flesh!