I Am in Bed with You

I Am in Bed with You by Emma Barnes. Auckland: Auckland University Press, Auckland (2021). RRP $24.99. Pb, 88pp. ISBN: 8978169409203. Reviewed by Patricia Prime.

Emma Barnes is not greatly given to the surreal but exhibits from the first proclivities which, if not disconcerting, are at least intriguing. Living in Aro Valley, Wellington, their poetry has been widely published. They are currently editing, with Chris Tse, an anthology of LGBTQIA and takatapuhi writing from Aotearoa New Zealand with AUP.

I Am in Bed with You does not disappoint. It tells a single story, but the parts are immutable, the great sweep of its narrative mysterious and fateful, heartbreaking and mesmerising, charged with wonder. The opening sequence bears the title “This is a creation myth” and consists of twelve prose poems. The first poem begins:

            The woman impregnated the man and his belly swelled full

            of tadpoles. They lay on collapsible sun chairs eating crackers

out of boxes until the children arrived. The first one hurled hula

hoops in front of it, rolling and tumbling through them while breathing fire. The second child, as always, had a lot to live up to. That child balanced books on its head and juggled water balloons. Though this feat was equally challenging, the audience felt it was only a four out of five compared to the previous entertainer. (p. 3)

The poems are instructive. We learn from “Meat”:

            I know many women who are growing embryos. I had hoped

            It was done in mason jars with water by now. But I have been

            informed that it’s still much meatier than that. My mason jar was

ready to go. I had a jug of water even. (p. 5)

 “Reading” moves into the territory of a relationship with a man:

            I learned to read the weather at his knee, at his beck and

            call. I look into a face to see the headland, the forming

            clouds. I will call it a storm five days in advance. I interpret

            the signs inside the signs before the signs are signs. (p. 6)

There is a witty distortion here, and the poems lead into a sequence of nine prose poems called “The Factory”. The second poem begins:

            The factory is cold. It echoes. It is dark and I can’t reach

the light switch. I can call out but no one hears me. I call out

again. I spend time reaching for the door handle. My body

should be able to grow like a tree. I should always be taller. (p. 10)

The second section, “Sigourney Weaver in your dreams” is a sequence of twenty poems from “Sigourney Weaver and the Dream Father” to “Sigourney Weaver becomes the witch of the block”. These are elegant prose poems with grace and resonance. The first poem begins:

            Last night I was some famous guy’s lovechild. There was

            so much arguing. I felt like a fountain of eyes and ardour

            and somehow the reproduction of Marie Antoinette’s estate

            he had in the backyard seemed just one farm animal too much.

You put on the maid outfit and feed the lambs until dusk; I’ve

got too much thinking to do. (p. 27)

The exercise of verse functions therapeutically for Emma Barnes. Their memories are clear and they do not falsify. However much pain it causes, they encourage Sigourney to buy a property in Aro Valley:

            Sigourney Weaver started by looking on Trade Me. I’d

given her that tip and she tucked it away in her incomprehensible,

nesty head. We visit houses together. She always goes and stands

staring off into the backyard, if it has one. I try to piece together

whether the house will stand up if she buys it. Is there room for

her egg chair? (p. 29)

There is no obviously profound insight, no sense of wrong, conscious or unconscious, visited on Sigourney. The poems demand surrender not scrutiny.

Rhythm, the suspense of the long paragraphs, the humour and emotional range constitute the basic attributes of the poems. Their truthfulness gives them the high value of poetry as a human testimony. The account of life with Sigourney, with its sense of values, the balance of comedy and suspense, the narrative mode, make the poems particularly memorable. And Sigourney is made the heroine in her own way.

The third section, “The Run-Around”, contains nineteen prose poems; each poem consisting of one or two paragraphs. “Give up” is a typically fine poem, paying tribute (as many of the poems do) to a loved one from the past as well as providing touching glances of the poets. The poem ends:

            I believe you because you are drawing me into shapes and those                       shapes are windows and those windows open into fields of summer       grass that are mid-thigh when I walk out into the hot air. Your weight on top of           me crushes flowers beneath us. (p. 49)

Most poetry readers will be familiar with feelings of love in youth, but in “The butter knife” Barnes writes about love in later life, conveying their feelings with aplomb. The poem begins:

            In the reverse ordering of memory I always see me in the light that I’ve            been seen in before. The darkening of middle age where we come to      invisibility and mistrust of the prior senses of youth. No one really knows       anything but especially when you’re young. As a slightly less young person         the inevitable disappearing act my face and body performs is still something            strange and seeing unexplained. (p. 56)

Among the many things I enjoyed about Barnes’ writing is their conversational style, natural and clearly honed through meticulous concentration. “I invite myself inside” demonstrates this well. Here are the first lines, similar to the strains of thought which go through our minds from time to time:

            You have not kissed me. I have not been kissed. The night approaches

            with the sound of starlings finding roost. And you have still not kissed             me. I kissed myself in the mirror of myself to find the thread thatconnected me to the place where I knew what it meant to be someone after their own heart. Or hearts in the same shape. (p. 54)

This section has several superb poems, written with a “first person” skill in which the poems shine. Here are the last lines lines from “To be known”:

            I loved in the dark, in this dark. The safety of darkness.

of being unseen and unknown then the blinding rightness of being

seen and known. I wouldn’t say understood. To understand is to answer the phone and I almost never do that on the first go. Call again. (p. 57)

And in “Completely dry riverbed”, we have these poignant final sentences:

            In the dry riverbed the dogs chase after everything with a keen sense of             righteousness anticipating perhaps Terry, a dingo that fell in love with a dog.    But who knows the minds of dogs let alone dingoes. And love cannot be          explained in any case. (p. 58)

Barnes’ memories are brilliantly and beautifully expressed in the two-page poem, “Cut”. The poem has a wonderful narrative and the imagery is spot-on and immensely entertaining. In one section Barnes compares herself to a rabbit:

            The barrow is lined with fur. I am the rabbit plucking my own chest

            to shelter the smaller selves I’ve created. I set them free here. When   they are loose they are me, but free. Me but much smaller. Me but                 completely without sight for now. (p. 61)

These poems, speak for themselves and with a quiet decisiveness. The author has something to say and it is their business to say it. The collection is a rich compendium of poems rather than a themed book. It covers many areas poets often write about, but the work is strikingly original. I love their directness and vitality. The poems leap from the page, the style is exciting. These are the last lines from the final poem, “Good girl, good girl”:

I would ruin so many more things than I’ve let myself if I only let myself. I’m still trying to be top of the class, the good girl.

and ruin is not the calling of good girls. Good girls sit with their knees touching with their hands in their laps and with their mouths closed. The good girl’s mouth is always closed and the sun never sets and the          ruin stays inside where it was put in the first place, where it is meant to be. (p. 68)

This collection refreshes my appetite for poetry because of its intelligent preciseness, quality and originality. It emphasizes the need to be attentive and open, to let life’s nuances reveal themselves. That holds true as the subjects the poems address are important, often deeply and personally so – they combine subjects with a fantastic use of language, and the writing comes alive. The poems amply display the Barnes’ ability to pay attention and vividly share what they find (or what finds them). In the book’s many poems, the author shares their surroundings and experiences, and often reflect on their own place in the world. This is by definition a journey in search of meaning about one’s self and one’s place in the universe.