Gaia Holmes

As the title poem relates - it takes a strong woman to single-hand a piano up three flights of stairs! Fortunately in Gaia’Holmes’s second collection her strengths extend well beyond the physical and are displayed generously in an honest, sometimes brutal portrayal of isolation - filtered through a landscape of love and loss. But even in that dark-matter of the soul Holmes makes me laugh where humour surprises most because of its unexpectedness. Surely few poets have so cleverly exploited the comedic potential of Cillit Bang!
But her work is primarily a sensitive and sensual exploration, rich in artistry, her verbal brush strokes a palette soft and tonal, her colours possess “ a frail mortality” and they “drip from the sun” they pulse and dazzle”. My favourite poem is “Murder My Darlings” - an account of the poet’s response to a critic. It closes with an allusion to the moon’s reflection trapped in a bowl like a goldfish, “radiating amber light across the page.” It is an illumination that shines throughout the entire collection, for here is a poet “seeing into the heart of things”.… (mere)