Weighing in at over 600 pages, this is a substantial volume. Too big to be delivered through the letterbox, but handed in at the front door, it has given me an opportunity to renew my acquaintance with this prolific writer’s work. The first two poems I ever read by Adcock were ‘Water Below’ and ‘A Game’. Both were included in the 1967 PEN anthology edited by Harold Pinter, John Fuller and Peter Redgrove. The present volume brings together work from all her previous publications, from the earliest The Eye of the Hurricane (1964) to the latest The Mermaid’s Purse (2021) and ends with 20 new poems from 2024, concluding with her poem ‘Being Ninety’. This edition was published on her 90th birthday.

Born in Papakura, New Zealand in 1934, Adcock spent the war years in England, returning to her family in New Zealand in 1947. Moving to Britain in 1963, she worked until 1979 as a librarian in London. Following a short spell in Newcastle as Northern Arts Literary Fellow in 1979-81, she returned to London and became a freelance writer. She received an OBE in 1996 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006. In 2019 she was a recipient of the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry which coincided with the publication of her Collected Poems in New Zealand by Victoria University Press under licence from Bloodaxe Books.

One of the advantages about a collected edition is that it enables the reader to gain an insight into a poet’s development and to gauge the extent to which his or her style has changed over time. In the case of Adcock, the barometer has hardly moved at all: her work has been consistently good right from the start. This may well be the reason why she came to prominence early on in what was then, with the possible exception of Stevie Smith, a male-dominated 1960s world. The relaxed, conversational style that has become her hallmark over the years is a testament to the power of plain words when placed within a poetic context. Her poetry, frequently fast-paced, keeps us on our toes.

The poems, often written from the vantage point of an outsider and set in her native and adopted countries, cover a wide range of subject matter from family history to dedications to specific poets such as Roy Fisher, Michael Longley and Tim Cunningham, London during the war, life in post-war Britain, political issues of the day and character sketches. In several of her poems she writes movingly on the universal themes of birth, death and bereavement. Recurring subjects include schooldays, and animals, in particular, insects, a selection of which appear in the section ‘My Life with Arthropods’ from Dragon Talk in 2010.

Throughout her work, even though she often places herself within her poems, there is a notable element of detachment. Nothing ever lapses into sentimentality. Everything is calmly summed up, emotion reined in:

 

     Half an hour before my flight was called

     he walked across the airport bar towards me

     carrying what was left of our future

     together: two drinks on a tray.

                                                 (‘Send-Off’)

 

The strategic positioning of the word ‘together’ suggests that the togetherness relates primarily to the drinks on the tray.

Several of her poems have a wonderful air of mystery about them and stop short before breaking the spell with an explanation. A few veer deliberately towards the absurd. Many of her poems, such as ‘The Prize-winning Poem’ (Adcock has judged a lot of poetry competitions in her time) and ‘Halfway Street, Sidcup’ are imbued with a wry sense of humour. Several of the shorter poems, with their sharp, intelligent wit suggest a close parallel with Elaine Equi’s work, despite Adcock’s admission that her interests have always remained firmly on this side of the Atlantic.

Returning to the subject of insects, it seems fitting to end this review by quoting in full from one of Adcock’s favourite insect poems, ‘Dragonfly’:

 

     In the next life I should like to be

     for one perpetual day

     a dragonfly: a series of blue-green

     flashes over Lily Tarn,

     a contraption of steel and cellophane

     whose only verbs are dart, skim, hover.

     One day is enough to remember.

 

This major retrospective of her work will be welcomed with enthusiasm by all who wish to study in depth the span of Adcock’s literary career.

 

Fleur Adcock, Collected Poems, Bloodaxe, £35 (hardback), £25 (paperback)