Serie Barford. Photo / Supplied
Sleeping with Stones
by Serie Barford
(Anahera Press, $25)
It's no easy thing to be a writer. To write is to face down the hardship of realising the innumerable complexities of successful storytelling; and to do so, often, for meagre economic return. New Zealand author Serie Barford has triumphed over much adversity. Her first book published in 1985, she's sustained a literary career across four decades. She's also battled the tragedy of losing her partner Alain and, more recently, severe illness. It's the former that she bravely and skillfully explores in her fifth book, Sleeping with Stones.
At its core, Barford's new poetry collection is a series of four seasonal acts: Autumn to Summer. If structurally, this speaks to demise emerging into rejuvenation, so too story and theme. The personal tale of Alain's accidental death and the author's all-encompassing heartache is confronted in the first poem, Piula Blue. The title refers to a freshwater pool on the Samoan island Upolu, where Alain died, while the subject-matter explores the emotions which arise in remembering, not the event, but the place. The poem delicately weaves the poignancy found in a place that is simultaneously a vital source of Barford's Samoan heritage and a locale of profound devastation.
The verses that follow, Losing balance and Under siege, like the title piece astutely broaden the emotional range of the work. With them, the reader moves from melancholy to pain, anger to longing. The awfulness of having a loved one taken away so suddenly and unexpectedly is confronted with depth and candid determination, as symbolized by Autumn's closing lines: "I imagine you falling/ head first into the abyss … heart exploding/ becoming the sky."
Where Sleeping with Stones is a confessional work, it's also a cathartic one. Out of its exploration of emotional and personal trauma comes poetic affirmation and rebuilding. The concluding parts, Spring and Summer, play critical roles in this. Poems such as What we carry and Sing to me don't dismiss the ongoing suffering, but rather contextualise it within a search for renewal. We grieve, we are told, but life continues on around us. In pursuit of rejuvenation, Barford returns us to where we started: the land. Juxtaposing the difficult emotional terrain of Puila examined at the start of the book, her later poems find life lessons in the earth and emerging flowers. Additionally, they touch upon the coping mechanisms offered by the rotation of the seasons, a baby's birth and a bright new dress bought to offset the ageing process.
As fearless as its author, Sleeping with Stones is an adept poetry collection spanning the emotional, psychological, personal and seasonal gamut of grief. Never maudlin, always honest, the ultimate success of the book is its ability to exult in love, while honouring loss.
Reviewed by Siobhan Harvey