And They Are Clapping
by Sara Nesbitt Gibbons
35 poems, 50 pages
Price: £9.50
ISBN: 978-1-912876983
Publisher: Indigo Dreams Publishing
To order: www.indigodreamspublishing.com
Reviewed by Neil Leadbeater
London-based poet, writer and workshop tutor Sara Nesbitt Gibbons has been published widely in journals, magazines and anthologies and listed / placed in a number of eminent poetry competitions which include the Troubadour International Poetry Prize and the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Some of her poems have been performed as theatre in a number of venues across London and exhibited at the South Bank Centre. She holds an MA with distinction in Creative Writing taught by Andrew Motion and Jo Shapcott and specialises in leading projects in multi-modal story-telling, creative writing, poetry and theatre. ‘And They Are Clapping’ is her debut collection and it won the Indigo-First Poetry Prize in 2024.
A quick glance through the contents page reveals certain symmetries that hold the collection together: three poems spaced judiciously through the text with the title ‘Looking at Her Missing Brother’s Paintings’ followed by the title of a specific painting: ‘Mount Goatfell, Isle of Arran,’ Self-Portrait as Child,’ and ‘East Finchley Cemetery.’ There are two poems which address medical issues from an unusual angle: ‘Cinderella Explains Endometriosis and Subfertility,’ and ‘My Garden Explains Endometriosis and Laparoscopy.’ There is a substantial poem on dental surgery which I will come to later on in this review. Finally there is a series of poems concerning seals.
The poems in this collection are set in a variety of locations. Some of these are quite specific, such as Kensington Central Library, a basement flat in London W11, the Tower Wing of a University Dental Hospital and the Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park. Others are less specific but are the subject of childhood memories and time spent at the seashore spotting seals. Some poems are in reflective mode. One of the biggest subjects in the book, which touches on the issue of loss, happens to be addressed by the shortest poem of all. Here is the poem in its entirety:
Loss
The only way I could say it
would be to get in with the sea,
learn the expression it makes
as it hits the rocks and breaks.
So much is expressed in these four lines: the comfort of being immersed in something greater than oneself, the characteristic ebb and flow of emotion, calmness one minute and turmoil the next, anger as a stage of grief which in turn brings relief and some sense of release. The poem is all the more powerful for its brevity.
In ‘Sign at the Start of the Road’ a range of subjects are handled simultaneously. It is the equivalent of the mind multi-tasking. There is a fallen road sign. We can read what we like into the road sign because it does not say anything. It is a mirror ‘for cars turning from the beach’ but it is also there for each of us to see our own image. It has been lying there in a state of fallen grace for some while. Around it are gathered ‘Wholesale orange juice cartons, Lucozade. / Rusty ferns. Rust winter light.’ Gibbons weaves together thoughts about animals and humans. She tests the loyalty of dogs. ‘I’m here to learn about dogs,’ she says but she is also there to learn about patience and the trustworthiness of a new love in her life. How much can she trust her lover and how much can she trust her own emotions? Questions of transparency, afforded by the mirror, and uprightness, afforded by her gait, hover in the background of this complex and well-wrought poem.
In ‘Morrison’s Box, first lockdown (after no food shopping for three weeks)’ a poem from the time of the Covid 19 pandemic, Gibbons gives us a ‘list’ poem -quite literally a shopping list – of items with added personal commentary. Surprise at the newness of it all is conveyed in the opening stanza:
A cucumber! A cucumber!
The first yippee of the box. The only vegetable my oldest
always eats.
The last line made me smile: ‘Cravendale. Is that milk?’
For me, one of the most striking poems in this collection is the pivot at the centre of the book entitled ‘University Dental Hospital, Tower Wing’ (Fractured Crown Sequence), a series of seven linked sonnets that run in chronological order through a surgical procedure. The last line of each sonnet is also the first line of the succeeding one which adds to a sense of continuity. This is not one for the faint-hearted. The use of technical terminology adds to its authenticity and also its drama but there is also some humour here: shades of the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood hover in the background. The endodontist, we are told is ‘like the wolf who has put on Red Riding Hood’s gown….a wolf who’s stuck dad’s binoculars / onto granny’s glasses.’ The wolf looms large because it is also named (along with members of her family) in the dedication at the front of the book.
Leaving one’s body parts to medical research is the subject of ‘Afterlife.’ This is another example of a poem on an unusual theme that is well-crafted in verse form. Here are the opening two stanzas:
I have found something for you to do, body,
when you’ve stopped carrying me. Your
loyal if short-lived service has moved me
in so many ways. I didn’t want to leave
you with limited options; you’ve
behaved so differently to other’s bodies. I
honour that. I’ve written to the faculty
and they’ve accepted you for a new role.
Notice the careful handling of the line endings, especially the last line of the first stanza which could be read as a longing to hold on to life and not to succumb to death until the run-on in the second stanza makes for a different meaning.
‘To Sorrow’ is a beautiful lyrical poem where the emotion is cast as a shadow following the body like a ghost. The interaction between the speaker and the subject is delicately drawn, especially at the end:
You have been
skating on my skirts, arms up
to get my attention. Come here,
little thing, and stop your crying.
The seal poems originate from the memory of being given a first soft toy through to the actual sighting of seals at various locations off the southern coast of County Cork in the Republic of Ireland. A sense of the fragility of these marine mammals is pitched against the safety afforded to man by the presence of the Fastnet lighthouse and the Mizen Head Signal Station Visitor Centre which serves as the “safety at sea museum.” A similar contrast between fragility and reassurance is achieved in ‘Reading the Sea’ where the final line, ‘All swell, all swell, all swell’ is not all that far removed from the threefold ‘All’s well’ attributed to Julian of Norwich.
These observational poems are at once personal and universal in their exploration of human and animal life. They have at their heart our vulnerabilities but also our instincts for survival.
The attractive cover image is by Neal Vaughan, a contemporary artist living and working in South London. A founder of Carshalton Artists, he also project manages arts festivals, creates short films, promotes events and facilitates community engagement workshops. Further information may be obtained by clicking on the following link: https://www.nealvaughan.co.uk/
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