PHOTO
Biology Field Trip
Jenny Powell
Cold Hub Press
Reviewed by Hamesh Wyatt
Almost 30 years ago, Jenny Powell produced her debut collection of poems Sweet Banana Wax Peppers.
It contained the touching poem Love Heart.
It begins: “He asks me, / ‘When you are dead / and I am dead, / will you still / be in my heart?’ / He gets ready for his bath / his small smooth body / waiting for an answer.”
Fast forward and the little boy, now a grown man, asks how the world could be different when his own daughter has grown up.
He did not think the world would function anymore.
This was the apocalyptic idea of future collapse.
Biology Field Trip as a collection began from this point.
Powell looked at art in 2021’s Meeting Rita.
This time around it is the natural world.
Powell concentrates on an image until “a switch goes on in her head”.
She sees detail clearer and this becomes poetry.
This latest collection has more conversation pieces and lots of perspectives of wildlife.
Whether it is “Toroa Albatross Egg Sitting”, the “Hum of Harpoons” on a whale or a list of items to take on a biology field trip.
I like how Powell feels blessed by nature.
She may have attended talks on bees and wasps but she has seriously taken on board a “Nest of Learning”.
This is not bad from someone who only did fifth form science.
Powell has pursued truth in her poems without being convinced by its conclusions.
Poets for centuries have argued about many things — the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty, the universal fickleness of women, the matchless perfection of one woman, the ability of plants to experience and express pleasure.
We may believe they are mistaken.
But like any biology field trip, we value the resourcefulness and intelligence needed to make this all worthwhile.
Powell often writes directly about events in her own life.
She has put together many collections.
Powell is the Unesco City of Literature South D Poet Lorikeet that has helped our literary scene in Dunedin.
Little children enjoy her teaching.
She herself has gone back to studying at the University of Otago.
Penguins, weather events and our human reactions are found in this latest collection of poems.
Just as fish inhabit the sea and are brought up to the surface, seeds and ideas for poems live here.
Powell is often emotional, delivering from memory shadowy thoughts but she fishes them up anyway.
The poem Her Uncle’s Eye is a good example.
An object takes on a brand-new life floating in a jar.
Energy, passion and fascination draw in the reader.
Biology Field Trip is an insightful collection.
Hamesh Wyatt lives in Bluff. He reads and writes poetry