living by the law of light - Mary McCollum

Although I was co-founder of the Philip Larkin Society, writing about his poetry and curating exhibitions of his photographs, I have always been uneasy with the idea that his name is coterminous with Hull’s literary universe. My latest book Electric Avenue (LegalHighsPress) is in part an attempt to deflect attention onto a vibrant new generation of poets, many of them women. Sarah Stutt, Lesley Harrison and Ellen Cranitch have all used Hull’s flatness, giant skies and proximity to water, to make startling equations between inner and outer landscapes, geographical and psychological terrains. Now Mary McCollum establishes herself as a poet of national stature with the luminous collection, living by the law of light (dancing sisters). I especially like the way Mary walks her poems through the local topography in a manner that opens up diverse vistas – surreal observations (‘two ducks swimming backwards/ carried by the current’), intimate conversations (‘‘did you think we’d last this long?’ you ask me/ on one of our walks by the estuary’) and dark historical forebodings (‘walking on the beach I come across a concrete pillbox’). This is an art that conceals its artifice, welcoming the reader in.

John Osborne, The Big Issue, November 2019