By Eoin Meegan
The notion of presence, synonymous with intimations of eternity is what first struck me when reading Rachael Stanley’s debut offering, Back to Infinity. Thematically expansive, juxtaposing the mundane with the surreal, the ephemeral with the eternal; at times reminiscent of a musical score with its repeated variations sounding through divergent and disparate individual offerings.
Echoes of eternity are evident, but never oppressive, in poems such as Breath, Corridor, In the Midst of Potato Skins, Ocean, Songs True and False, and others. In fact, lightness is another characteristic we find; like when you’re trying to get through to a utility company on the phone (always a pleasure!), or the panic over mislaying ones mobile, which the poet prefers to call ‘the beast’,
it offers escape from
the awkward pauses
the conversations that
require effort,
from Crutch
Moving from the spectre of impatient technology Stanley casts an acerbic eye on the pandemic in Twenty – Twenty, while simultaneously celebrating the freedom it brought in The Self.
faces buried behind masks,
the ongoing science fiction
we wish we could switch off.
from Twenty – Twenty
Sprinkled amongst the collection we find Haiku, which I confess a fondness for, although as the poet doesn’t adhere to the five-seven-five rule, I found these poems less satisfying.
Death and Eternity
In Farewell to Gran we glimpse the world through the eyes of a seven-year old, perhaps her first encounter with death, with its delicious interplay between absence and presence.
Silence first made itself
known to me as absence
Now it makes itself
known as presence.
Two poems are dedicated to the poet’s mother, both using external objects through which to channel loss. A personal letter is the chosen vehicle in Words of Love, a poem on the occasion of not being able to be at her mother’s side at her passing, only for it to turn up again in an unexpected setting; a coincidence of course, but only for those who can’t read messages. While in A Picture of My Mother Reading it’s a photograph that evokes memories of happier times, but hinting at sadness to come:
Oh mother, dearest mother,
did you know what lay ahead of you?
I think in your heart you knew that
yours would not be an easy marriage
but a journey of two souls
who were drawn by the magnetic
force of attraction.
Father relationships often seem to be more challenging in general for poets, with silence a common motif. In Remembering My Father As We Approached Gethsemane (Friday April 13th 1979) Stanley treats her own father with great compassion, but also honesty, and even claims an affinity with him.
You were perceived as the enemy within the camp,
yet strangely, I felt I travelled the same road as you,
a kindred pair of outcasts.
The opening and closing poems round the collection with this recurring sense of the eternal. From Dreams of Freedom, with its desire ‘to become the feathered air / spiraling through heat and light’ to the book’s closing poem, Atoms,
Then form into sentences upon tongues
that will one day return to a realm
beyond names and descriptions,
beyond labels and conditioned minds,
and dance the way back to infinity.
While the penultimate poem prefigures the poet’s own death:
On my last day,
I hope to be a feather
falling lightly upon you.
from My Last Day
Notice how it echoes the notes of the first poem, Dreams of Freedom.
Back to Infinity is a work of astounding maturity, strength and compassion. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed reading a poetry book so much.
Rachael Stanley grew up in Rathgar and went to school in St Louis in Rathmines. She currently resides in Milltown. From a young age she always had an interest in expressing herself through the written word.
Back to Infinity by Rachael Stanley is published by Revival Press and is available in Books on the Green, Sandymount and in Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway, and on the website from the Limerick Writers Centre: https://limerickwriterscentre.com/product/ back-to-infinity-by-rachael-stanley/
