Anne Lewis-Smith: Red Shoes

I first met Anne Lewis-Smith in 1970 when she lived in Northamptonshire and was chairing World Poetry Day. She'd submitted some poems for my new magazine Headland and appropriately the first poem in the first issue was her poem First.

She is now 80 and this, her eleventh collection, will possibly be her last. I'm sure I have a copy of her third collection FLESH AND FLOWERS (Mitre Press 1967) in my bookshelves. I can't just put my hand on it now, but, whilst looking for it, found PLACES AND PASSIONS (Mitre Press 1986) and inside are my scribbled notes for a review

This hardback collection is full of sensual power and gentle passion with seriousness and humour cohabiting a world of reality.

RED SHOES opens with a macabre but haunting poem

a counterpoint for female voice, between the Girl alone and a chorus of five representing the River

which is about a drowning girl.

Among my favourites in this collection are CHILD'S SWING ON PELISTRY BEACH

Beside me, in marram, a dark boughed tree
gave shelter, where ropes, knotted easily
round branches, let a small wooden swing hang free.

and STAYING ON THE BOAT

What did I expect ...
... paths would still be bracken hid
laced with tall nettles so you held
your bare arms high wading the green?
... I saw bare well-worn tracks
on the southern hill, but not our tree

ANNE LEWIS-SMITH: RED SHOES AND OTHER POEMS
Poetry Monthly Press
39 Cavendish Road
Long Eaton
Nottingham
NG10 4HY
UK

ISBN 978 1 906357 28 3
£6.50

Read a review of an earlier collection on NHI Review.

Read another poem by Anne Lewis-Smith on the Zimmerzine Archive.

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