Cath Davies

Playful, Passionate Poems Full Of Love

This is such a refreshing collection of poems. Reading it is like drinking from a glass of fizzy water with bubbles bursting around your nose and a hint of lemon in there somewhere to add a bit of zing. The poems are very accessible but they’re driven hard by Cath Davies’s passion. The first, ‘Echoes’, speaks of a ‘roaring female sound. / A scream from history. / A deafening echo / of all the women unreported.’ This sense that our world is tainted by injustice which must be faced up to permeates the whole book.
But there is also a playfulness to many of the poems. In ‘Tree’, Davies ponders on how, where once she loved naturally, she now loves digitally. ‘now you are a language in binary code, / a digital forest I am lost in, / where love is a binary word.’ Then there’s the woman stitching in ‘Platonic’, beads of sweat on her brow. ‘Mend this, you say, / and you hand me your heart. / I sigh, the hole is bigger than ever. / Quite rented apart.’ You will often find yourself smiling while reading these poems.
Throughout the book, Davies muses on how to live the best life. Since we’re social beings who need to feel loved, with a bit of luck we might end up like the couple getting married in ‘Vegas’. ‘two sinners / holy happy. / Happy as pigs in shit.’ This is such a wise book full of good sense. ‘But never regret a brushstroke / In the one masterpiece / You will ever paint’ she writes in ‘The Art of Life’. Whereas ‘You Never Know’ what the future brings, ‘So love until you’re breathless’.
Politics interests Davies and many of the poems touch on this. In ‘A Bitter Pill’, Davies likens society today to a circus whose ringmasters have destroyed the safety net. As so often in her poems, the metaphor works well and she ends with a ringing call to action. ‘Your collective voice / can dismantle the tent. / End this circus. / Close this arena of clowns.’ But for Davies, the political can never be separated from the personal. She has a deep concern for the lost and abandoned whom we brush casually aside; the homeless ‘Angel In The Cold’ and the World War 1 Private ‘Shot At Dawn’ being examples.
For me, it’s the title poem which encapsulates the feel of this collection. It’s so positive and funny and wild. ‘Above all, be totally fearless, / make a first date of every day. / Kiss life completely on the lips, / and go with it all the way.’
I love this collection to bits. Buy – Read – Enjoy!

Ewan Smith