Note on the Door And Other Poems About Family Life

Lorraine Marwood (author)

Walker Books, Australia: 2011; 131pp

ISBN: 9781921720611 

Genre: poetry

Issues: family

It is never too soon to introduce children to the joy of reading a beautifully crafted poem, especially those by such a master of the small moment as Lorraine Marwood. Concise lines with the beauty and clarity of a well-tuned bell, her free-form verse captures the essence of daily events that we might otherwise take for granted.

'A spill of milk/ wallops into a forward roll/ Spinning over/leaping for the trapeze (of the cupboard door)' (from Acrobatic Milk p25)

'She is a lap-cat woman/ Persian princes on her knee/ while the afternoon movie purrs.' (from Our Neighbour p20)

'Tadpoles are weavers of watery stitches/ Sis and I try cupping hand to catch, /they tickle over skin/ flipping tails like fish/ and we can spy those folded down/ future frog legs tight in membrane/ dreams.' (from Tadpoles p116)

The reader can rest in these lucid images, these word pictures of brief moments in time where Marwood finds beauty and value that many others would miss. Divided into five sections – Family Notes, Holiday Notes, School Notes, Extended Family Notes and Playtime Notes – the reader is led on a meandering journey through the poet's year. A clever layout editor has added the occasional rough drawing or photograph that gives an intimacy to the collection, hinting that the reader has actually stumbled across the poet's personal journal and is enjoying the insight it gives into her way of looking at the world. For that is Marwood's greatest strength – a capacity to project her vision so clearly, so vibrantly, that readers will never look at their own world quite the same way again. The next time you spill the milk you may see a little more beauty, a little less disaster.

Which makes the world a much richer place, of course.

Highly recommended.

Same author: The Ute Picnic & Other Poems; Starjumps; Ratwhiskers and Me