One of the many dangers in putting together a largely single-themed collection of poetry is that the poet may find themselves working with a restricted suite of words – this in addition to running the risk of ‘sameness’ or good poems/lines simply getting ‘lost’. Painters do something similar of course (think Rothko or Picasso’s ‘periods’), relying on their genius to elevate their work.
I fear Helen Ivory’s “Constructing a Witch” falls foul of limited range, repetition and sameness to a degree – occasionally with the result that when she tries to break out from the ‘witchy straitjacket’ the outcome is often unconvincing (cf. references to Trump and Putin in ‘At the Witchcraft Museum’).
Single-themed publications are something of a bête noire for me; often I think the poems would be better served if there were fewer of them in a dedicated section within a more broadly themed collection. But that’s just me…
Ian Gouge - Writer 