Unsent – Penelope Shuttle

„What is it with poets and their hearts? They leave them in the oddest places.” (Quotation from “Hearts”, page 241)

Content

This is a new collection of poems from nine of her published books, published between 1981 and 2010 and a new collection, “Unsent” from 2012.

Themes and Language

Thema und Genre TextThe poet has written poems about everything, everyday situations and feelings; nothing seems too simple, flowers, rain and roses, art, nature, Cornwall’s impressive landscape, dreams and magic, children, especially about herself as a mother and her daughter Zoe. We find poems about love and poems written about her love for her husband Peter Redgrove who had died in 2003 and how she still is missing him.

Penelope Shuttle has words for everything and embraced by her feelings between the words, her language paints beautiful pictures full of wisdom, wit, happiness and sadness.

The first poem by Penelope Shuttle, I had read, was “Outgrown” written for her daughter Zoe and it is still one of my favorite ones

“….. because just as I work out how to be a mother

       she stops being a child.” (Page 107)

Just a few words to describe everything about motherhood.

Conclusion

Unsent is a collection of poems, not of classical rhymes, but of a beautiful poetic language, with its own intonation and rhythm, sensitive, stunning and deeply impressing. They are experiences of life, to share with our own experiences.