Stay Bones
by Liz Bahs
£10 (pub. 2020)

Liz Bahs’s debut collection of poetry straddles continents and generations – from a childhood in America to an adult life in the UK, from long-dead relatives to loved ones today. A family history is brought alive in a photographic sequence: “Through green shagpile fields, she gallops on / tiptoe” (Chicken Pox Nude), while in University of Florida: Jennings Hall we meet Lisa: ‘in the hallway, between the toilets / and the fire escape, skinny Lisa roller-skated / in her un- derwear, Budweiser in hand”. We also encounter Tony “in silver stilettos, tunes his voice higher”, a sex worker called Victoria, and the pilot of Flight 1549 who landed his plane on the Hudson river. A poignant medley of insights and char- acters, delivered with wit and grace, this collection lingers after the final page.

Praise for Stay Bones:

“In STAY BONES, metaphors of lenses and photography cohere for the poet to capture some keenly-observed and poignant memories. Here are insightful character portraits of family and friends, among others, written in an impres- sive range of forms, voices, styles and registers. These beautifully observed poems are elemental and steeped in image, place and character. They also open some very varied doors that are at once personal and public, tender and funny, sensual and sensory. Liz Bahs has a wonderful way with the everyday, and with contemporary material, just as she does with lyric evocation. STAY BONES is beautifully phrased and musical, each poem shows the reader just enough, but leaves us wanting more : ‘the haunt of her voice / calling me after her’. A wonderful first full collection.”

Andy Brown

Mowing                     

I cannot write about mowing the lawn while I mow it. I cannot
write on the white brick wall, or on the back of one hand. I
cannot write on anything in the garden while I struggle with the
orange cord that keeps wrapping around my boot and throwing
itself in the mower’s path. I cannot write about mowing while
I mow, about the rhythm of the blades over the deep field
of grass, about the growl and shriek as they slice stones and
muddy earth. I cannot write about the cold breeze on the back
of my neck as I work over the same ground three times, the
lawn calf-deep and soaked from autumn rain. While I mow, I
cannot write about the grassy tang that smells of haricots verts,
green beans. I cannot write about mowing as I move orange
metal from corner to corner, tree to tree, the pavement mapping
the shape of lawn grown wild. I cannot write it as I wrestle with
the beast this lawn has become after months of not mowing. I
can’t mow when I must write, so I make the whirring stop, then
crouch to collect mounds of grass too wet to be sucked into the
mechanism: mossy with leaf mulch, trampled by the mower’s
triple pass. I clear them to clear my head. I gather the clumps
until my hands are green with crushed chlorophyll, until my
fingertips are gold with new words and the light of grass under
my skin. 

(from Stay Bones)