Missel-Child

by Helen Tookey

Genres: Poetry
Pages: 71
Rating:

Synopsis:

According to the seventeenth-century herbarium The Garden of Eden, a 'missel-child' is a mysterious being found beneath a mistletoe-covered tree - a changeling, perhaps, 'whereof many strange things are conceived'. Helen Tookey's first full collection of poems starts from the missel-child to explore archaeologies of identity, place and language. She is a formally inventive writer, using collage and syllabics, exploring elegy and myth. The poems in this book create a space in which language enables something to be said and also to be shown.

I hadn’t heard of Helen Tookey’s work before; Missel-Child, apparently a first volume, was a random choice at the library (I like picking random poetry I’ve not read and giving it a shot, since it’s never a huge time investment, and the library’s really the best way to do that).

I liked the glimpses at what sparked some of the poems, and some of the turns of phrase, but I finished it feeling pretty untouched by it… it just slid by without sinking any barbs in, despite liking the way it was written.

I’d give Tookey’s work another shot, but I wasn’t in love based on this experience.

Rating: 2/5 (“it was okay”)