Pamela Gormally lives in Alnwick, Northumberland, and holds an MA in creative writing from Newcastle University. She won first prize in the Sonnet or Not competition 2022 and third prize in the Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine competition in the same year.

On one level, ‘Knucklebones and Pegs’ explores the effects of early childhood cancer, separation and loss, and a long journey of healing and recovery. On another, it affirms the beauty of nature and an abiding ability to see in all things the richness and wonder of life. A quick glance through the contents page hints at the variety of subjects on offer: precious memories in ‘Saturdays at the Bakery’; travelogues in ‘Route 261’, ‘On the Way to the Bus Stop’, and ‘The Train at 8.03’; the marvels of the natural world in ‘Cranefly’ and ‘Drystone Wall’ and Gormally’s penchant for coming up with great titles such as ‘A Shining Knight on Old Elvet’ and ‘Mrs Silver Polishes Her Thoughts’ that are immediately appealing and draw the reader in.

The title draws together two poems which open and (almost) close the collection. ‘Knucklebones’ is the opener and ‘Pegs’ is the penultimate poem in the book. Early on in the book, Gormally paints a picture of where she is from in ‘Where I Belong’: “I am from the iron mangle / turning the cranky handle. / Quick! Hand me those pegs.”  The poem runs along similar lines to a poem called ‘Where I’m From’ by the American poet George Ella Lyon. Many poets have used it in the past as a writing prompt but few have come near to such closeness of detail as Gormally.

Among the many poems that I enjoyed in this collection, I would like to single out ‘Cranefly’ and ‘Tray’. In the former, Gormally writes from the cranefly’s point of view. The opening stanza is both original and amusing and it is set out on the page in such a way as to imitate the cranefly’s balletic movements:

 

     When I leap – my long legs scissoring

             across the cool white tiles

     float past your startled gaze

                         my lace wings caressing

            your restless hair -

                    do not flinch

     or be alarmed.

                                           I am Nijinsky!

     Admire me

                    while I strike

                        an attitude croisée devant.

 

‘The Tray’ is a moving account of illness in childhood: “Those days of illness and recovery / my mother carried a tray to my room. / An egg, soldiers of buttered toast. / A glass of Lucozade, bubbles of energy …” Later in the poem, Gormally asks herself: “Did I thank her? / All those days and nights of worry. / How the lines began to crease, / how her breath began to hurry.” The short lines, often complete sentences in their own right, pull us up sharply. How many of us have never thought of thanking our mothers until it is too late to do so?

‘Pegs’ is another tribute to her mother set in the landscape of the Durham Dales. It is another instance that moves effectively between past and present; “I space / rinsed-clean sheets along the line, taut / at the corners as she showed me when a child”. Note the careful choice of ‘taut’ with its echo of ‘taught’. Gormally uses a musical analogy to bring us into the present: “Now I stand in her summer garden / at the top note of my scale in health and strength, / while she descends in a minor key, so frail …”

Several of the poems on the natural world and the seasons contain memorable lines: in ‘January’, “winter light pours honey down the terrace”; in ‘Tai Haku’, a poem about cherry trees planted in Alnwick Gardens, “Petals blizzard down / as the breeze shakes the branches, opening and closing, / pleated silk fans” and in ‘Oarweed’s Tangle’ we read how “The marsh grass sways behind the dunes, / hush-a-bye in the evening sun”. Here, Gormally has caught the sound of what she is writing about.

‘Knucklebones and Pegs’ is a thing of beauty, a storehouse of memories keenly observed. It draws the reader into a life-affirming world that, despite difficulties and setbacks, gives us hope for the future.

Pamela Gormally: Knucklebones and Pegs, Indigo Dreams, £9.50