Safe Ground Book Review

by Setareh Ebrahimi

Safe Ground was published this year, by a well-established woman of many talents, Rosie Johnston. Rosie is a poet and a writing workshop facilitator. In her life she has been a solicitor, commissioning editor and journalist, amongst other things. Rosie regularly performs her poetry in Kent and beyond. The themes of this collection are childhood, reflection, reconciliation and moving forward – probably in that order. And of course, safety. Being able to relax, to not be on high alert all the time.

Location means so much in Safe Ground. We can see this straight away in the first poem, ‘Carnlough Bay’. Different locations pop up repeatedly, mostly near the sea. It seems as if Rosie is trying to map an emotional coastline of physical places – stitching them all together. This mapping is also a way for Rosie to look back and reflect.

At times, Safe Ground is from a child’s perspective. Girlhood is also important in this collection. It feels like a reclaiming of childhood, somewhere to be safe, hence the title. There is a counselling technique where one goes back to recreate situation to be altered or positive. I wonder if this is happening via poetry in this book.

The phrase ‘silent childhoods swing lifeless’ crystalises the concerns of this book. Rosie describes a tense, painful childhood. It is so visceral you can feel how freezing the described environment is. The character in these poems is not able to speak, but in writing a book about such moments, Rosie is. This is seen in the poem ‘In Good Hands’, where Rosie writes, ‘Little seven, you will be safe -/I will/never let go of your wee hand’.

The ghost of a mother haunts this book. She is cruel and overbearing. But there is a strong admiration of other women despite this which provides an alternative to misery. Numerous women have a dedicated poem. ‘Being with Anne’, about the speaker’s aunt, is a good example of this. Rosie shows us that there is hope in difficult situations.

The internal troubles of this book are echoed in external troubles, as Northern Ireland’s troubles are also written about. This can be seen in the poem ‘Abercorn, 4 March, 1972: Six O’Clock’ where Rosie writes of ‘Two dead. Bomb under table.’

There is a wordy, prose-like quality to many of the poems, such as ‘Breath in the View’ and ‘Off the Map’, then again many are sparce. There is a diversity in structure and technique, and you get an impression of a poet who has written a lot of poems previously who is able to take their time to write, using all the tools in their arsenal.

The Six-Count Jive extract, Rosie’s previous book, marks a change. After this, it seems as if the girl goes into adulthood and there is reflection over being a mother, the other half of having a mother.

The sea is what offers peace and an alternative path to the difficulties presented. In ‘Oysters Seventeen’ Rosie writes, ‘The sea nestles me; my/best mother.’ Joy is found at the beach repeatedly. Little details are focussed on, in opposition to larger problems. In the poem ‘Happy the Woman’ Rosie writes, ‘Happy the woman whose sweetest days/stroll with the tide’s roll, calmly sway.’

The sun’s heat seems to have the ability to break and remake, to cleanse and to heal.  

In the poem ‘In the Cool of the Hottest Day’ Rosie writes, ‘Another day close its/sunset eye./At least it watched me writing.’

The structure of this book is one of childhood to adulthood, struggle to peace. As the speaker in ‘Happy the Woman’ puts it, ‘I have loved and I have lived today’.

I liked this collection because I found it personally relatable. It seemed to open up some wounds to soothe them. Oddly enough my favourite poems in this collection were ‘C Sharp’, ‘My Boyish Love’ and ‘Off the Map’. These are poems that reimagine masculinity and present it as flawed, beautiful, brutal, playful. I think there are many people that will resonate with this collection, especially women and survivors of difficult childhoods.