Aloe

An aloe - spiky, soothing, fragrant, bitter - opens Diana Bridge's new collection of poetry. Aloe is structured in four parts: 'The compulsion to catch it', 'Into words', 'Among the Freuds' and 'It's their century'. The first section looks outwards to the natural world, opening with a stunning set of tree poems that begin with close observation and move on to contemplate loss, hesitancy, generation and repetition (repeat, diversify, diversify, repeat). The second section explores how words affect everyday life and how everyday life may be turned into words. Other voices and stories are used to convey psychological and physical suffering in 'Among the Freuds' - the furies, Penelope, Sylvia Plath and Medea all appear. The final section, 'It's their century', returns to the Chinese and Indian source material that Bridge has mined with such success in the past. Using various touchstones - an enduring classical poem, a superb Chinese pot and the architectural and sculptural records of India - she explores ideas of juncture and conjunction, meeting places between West and East. Aloe is a fine new collection by a rigorous and perceptive poet.