A review by riversnowdrop
GIRLBLOOD by Lauren Poole

5.0

I read this all at once and let me tell you: it hurts. These poems get under my skin and poke at parts of me and leave me weeping for the woman the author is and the woman I used to be. Lauren reminds me of my own girlhood - “while you were still learning to tie your laces, we were learning which shoes are best / to run in like your life depends on it. we were learning that it does” (I WONDER IF BEING A WOMAN HAS ALWAYS MEANT HIDING PAIN) - and the internalised misogyny, the confusing messages I received when I was young (IS IT NORMAL TO CRY AFTER SEX particularly resonates). She speaks about sexuality eloquently, articulating feelings I cannot - “i am only ever a stop between: between waking hours, between gay & straight - i am a non-place” (BISEXUAL / BASKERVILLE). It is also the poems about escape, about fighting to get out, that hit me hard when reading (RUN LIKE A GIRL being a favourite). In AFTER THE ASSAULT, Lauren writes “i have screamed & howled & crawled my way from mud & ash to magic.” This, I think, is the real triumph, the pervasive strength in Lauren’s poetry, the lingering sense that survival is possible and she is doing it. She is still here. So am I.