Simply magic

The title, Because a Woman’s Heart Is Like a Needle at the Bottom of the Ocean, comes from a Chinese proverb, and its meaning is slightly obscure. Does it mean a woman’s heart is tiny and delicate? Or does it mean a woman’s heart is sharp and pointed like a needle? Probably both, for Sugar Magnolia Wilson’s debut collection swings through different definitions of womanhood.

The opening sequence, Dear Sister, excoriates men for their nasty and polluting ways and presents women in a romantic light as night-time creatures, wedded to nature and finding fulfilment by themselves. The closing sequence,

Pen Pal, gives a child’s view of women as magic, complete with “spells” to make things better. But in-between there are some poems, such as Anne Boleyn, that let rip with savage imagery of women as monsters, and some poems clearly linked to the concept of good motherhood.

Defining women isn’t Wilson’s only concern. The meeting of cultures is the theme of her standout poem Conversation with my boyfriend, a dialogue between Korean and anglophone perspectives, perhaps showing mutual incomprehension. It’s a really skilled deployment of the “double” poem, where stanzas on opposite pages answer each other. Nature plays a major role in many poems, though usually anthropomorphised to reflect human dilemmas. And there are evocations of childhood in the 1980s.

Most arresting, however, is Wilson’s skill with imagery. If Because a Woman’s Heart Is Like a Needle at the Bottom of the Ocean is sometimes wistful in tone, it doesn’t avoid the hard realities of life. A really impressive debut.

BECAUSE A WOMAN’S HEART IS LIKE A NEEDLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, by Sugar Magnolia Wilson (Auckland University Press, $25)