soil-skin ‘is the courage to meet the earth naked’; it is a moving compost heap concerned with life cycles of earth and of people. Alison Cohen’s lyric poems let processes of dying, decomposition and mourning open into potential new growth. Lives of her parents and herself break down into a medium from which her hope and uncertainty for future life, including that of ‘Modern Day Minotaur’, ‘Xenobot’, ‘oiled-us’ and ‘you-song’, emerges.

 

‘Here a confident voice gently speaks of aging, loss and gardening. We are led through intimate experiences by a skilled writer. Not a word is wasted, though many are played with as in “Credo” and “Compost Heap”. Images and ideas sing from the pages: “purple loosestrife, it’s everywhere—loose strife”. Place is neatly pinned down—“the permit of these constant waves, the endless shift of sky”. These poems are full of honesty and bravery but more than anything, full of love. Visiting her mother’s grave, Alison realises—“that ache in her shoulder now gone”. There is humour too in poems about robots & Minotaurs: “He’s stuck in a maze of ethical issues”.

While I learn much from these tight vivid poems, Alison carries her knowledge lightly. “She’s grief transmuted into floccules”. Importantly Alison trusts us. Taking us with her, she shows us how to fold the difficult into our lives.’

 

—Finola Scott

 

‘soil-skin is an intimate and sensual exploration of earthiness and decay, expressed with scientific insight and a deep empathy for the living organisms which cohabit this world. These are poems of precision and tenderness, grief and acceptance, inviting us to dig into the ecstatic dark of the compost heap, the fertile island of a parent’s grave and to consider “whatever it is a soul breaks into”. Alison Cohen’s poetry navigates both physical and emotional landscapes. It looks unflinchingly at “all that work of dying” while reassuring us of joy, of sunlight, sea-glint and birdsong—soil-skin is a gift.’

 

—Gillian Dawson

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