Housework

All time, said somebody or other, is eternally present. Somewhere on Portland Street it is always 1910 and in Sue Birchenough’s poems everything is happening everywhere at once. These are kaleidoscopic, psychotropic sensory overloads, like being given all the jelly in the world and then some ice cream with popping candy. Forever tugging at the ravelled sleeve of language, Birchenough never lets us settle. One moment we’re on the swings, the next we’re on the roundabouts and the next we’re wondering how we ended up at the funfair in the first place. Life, as somebody else said, might be too short for housework, but not if you use a rainbow feather duster.– Tom Jenks