Poem of the week: In the Rose Garden by Helen Tookey – The Guardian

In the Rose Garden

Shes in the rose garden again, staringat her right arm, its pale soft undersidethat never gets the sun, never gets tanned.

Its very strange, she thinks, because the veinsat her wrist are greenish-blue: but the bloodthats blossoming, overblown already,

dropping fat petals on her dress, her shoes,the path with its edging of sharp pointedtiles (weathered is the word shell later hear

and not understand) the blood is brilliantstartling red, much redder than the cloudsof dark pink roses tangled above her

red, and at its heart a splinter, a glimpseof white, bright as the spiny shells that markthe drop from the patio, where her parents

and the others are talking, moving theirmouths and making gestures, though the sounddoesnt reach her the drop from the patio

down to the lawn, and all the way beyond to where she is, in the rose garden, staringat her right arm, its strange new blossoming.

Narratives describing strange, sometimes dreamlike, episodes from a female protagonists childhood dominate the second section of Helen Tookeys four-part collection of poems and prose poems, City of Departures. Some of the subjects are literary heroines or versions of them: here, the pronoun she leaves identification open. Her experience is both individual and representative.

The experience the poem describes self-harm or suicide attempt is dispassionately presented by the third-person narrator. The protagonist is dispassionate, too, curious about the effects of her own action, but observing them from a distance. Theres a fine level of formal and tonal control in the poem, reflecting this stance a stance we might call writerly in its discipline.

The first tercet simply presents the child or young woman noticing the pallor of her right arms underside. And then the narratives rich visual detail emerges: veins, blood that is blossoming already into fat drops, the rose garden itself and its larger setting where, like magnified thorns, there are sharp-pointed tiles edging the path and spiny shells that mark / the drop from the patio. A single sentence gathers energy as it unrolls across the six ensuing stanzas, and its length necessitates a little well-judged repetition. While setting the poem back on its narrative course after some important descriptive digressions, the reappearance of two grammatical subjects, the blood and the drop from the patio, suggest the unstoppable flow of blood and sentence.

Central to the flow of meaning is that splinter of white brightness, located in the blood itself, or, rather, the redness of the blood. We might think of Blakes sick rose, revised so that theres insight rather than corruption at its heart.

The narrative is clear and secretive at the same time: it prompts questions. I wanted to know whether the first line implied that the protagonists self-harming was frequent (shes in the rose garden again) or whether previous excursions to the rose garden would have had a different emphasis. The latter seems more likely, because the bloods blossoming is described, later on, as new. The rose garden as symbolism offers various interpretative possibilities. Then theres the interplay of the different kinds of drop, the blood, dropping like overblown rose-petals, and the drop between the raised patio, where the parents and the others are talking, and the garden. Are these adults quarrelling, discussing their problem child, or simply enjoying a glass of wine? We dont need to know, of course. Its enough that were shown the childs wilting isolation when were told that she can see the adults gestures, and their mouths moving, but not hear what theyre saying. The physical setting, aesthetic, expensive and sharp-edged, skilfully embodies the difficult family story.

In the Rose Garden might be partly about puberty, a terminus for a reluctant departure from childhood into womanhood. Its an interpretation that would fit the collections larger context of loss and dislocation. The title prose poem is here and perhaps makes an interesting comparative text. While not wanting to shoehorn a delicate and elegant poem into the Brexit boot, I couldnt help finding a certain aptness to the UKs current historical moment. Perhaps In the Rose Garden might also be read as a parable about declarations of independence, and their price?

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Poem of the week: In the Rose Garden by Helen Tookey - The Guardian