“An accomplished, thoughtful and rewarding collection that I will return to again and again.”
In her debut collection, Louise Walker explores with painful honesty how a sibling relationship is shattered when her brother dies suddenly in his twenties.
Meditating on memories and family photos, she confronts the impact of bereavement head-on, but also celebrates unexpected joy, as she embarks on her first flute lessons and pilgrimages of all kinds, finally coming full circle ‘getting at last/to the heart of things’.
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— Dave Martin
The review is reproduced, in full, at the end of this section
Louise Walker
Louise Walker was born in Southport and now lives in London.
After reading English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where she was a member of the Florio Society, she taught English for 35 years at girls’ schools.
Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award and longlisted in The Alchemy Spoon Pamphlet Competition, she was shortlisted in the Bedford Competition and won 3rd prize in the Ironbridge Poetry Competition.
Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and Gill Wing Jewellery for their showcase Poetry in Ocean.
A Review of From There to Here
Written by Dave Martin
As the title and cover photograph implies, this excellent collection from Louise Walker has a strong autobiographical thread, with the major theme of family, grief and loss. Minor notes from the flute and football run through.
I particularly enjoyed the poet’s choice of crisp, one-word poem titles. From the contents list, I was drawn to read Jug, Island, Rocks, Seaweed. They didn’t disappoint and I admired the variety of poetic forms deployed.
Inevitably, a life requires the handling of time and this is assured. In Pebble, the narrator holds a pebble:
“weight in my hand: one moment
the sea cannot grind to sand.”
Meanwhile, in Photo Album, she notes:
“As the camera stops time for all time, we smile
into whatever hasn’t happened yet.”
Whilst the shadow of grief and loss hangs over the collection, it is never mawkish or oppressive. In Wedding Album:
“Soft-voiced men in black
gentle us to the graveside.”
Alongside her exploration of the long-lasting impact of a losing a sibling early, something that will resonate with others, the poet touches on wider subjects that provide light and colour. The concrete poem, The Flute Speaks has a lovely ambiguity, the Character Actor provokes the damning:
“or left a trail of wives behind me
like half-smoked cigarettes.”
while Lobster Virgin is a delicious morsel for the poet to feast on, too, even as its “whisker reaches for my wineglass.”
Throughout her language use is sure. The quayside resounds to “a cacophony of baggage”, the clear-out reveals “a limp inflatable dolphin”, seaweed provides “silky dulse ribbons” and, in the final line, the poet leaves us “against gravel’s gutturals”.
An accomplished, thoughtful and rewarding collection that I will return to again and again.
Dave Martin