Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Next Issue Kirsty Gunn re-arranges the world John McAuliffe reads Seamus Heaney's letters and translations Chris Price's 'Songs of Allegiance' David Herman on Aharon Appelfeld Victoria Moul on Christopher Childers compendious Greek and Latin Lyric Book Philip Terry again answers the question, 'What is Poetry'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This review is taken from PN Review 229, Volume 42 Number 5, May - June 2016.

Cover of Mrs Uomo’s Yearbook
Leah FritzOne for the Books
Danielle Hope
Mrs Uomo’s Yearbook
Rockingham Press
80 pages, £9.99.
Unlike Danielle Hope’s four previous collections, Mrs Uomo’s Yearbook is something of a potpourri, divided into five parts including the modestly titled ‘Adaptations’ at the end, her translations of two Italian poets, Giovanni Pascoli and Eugenio Montale. Hope has travelled a great deal and spent time in several countries, including Italy. She is also a doctor. Born on a Yorkshire farm, her knowledge of the natural world is intimate. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the other sections of this book include one on coastal places, another on trees, one on the vagaries of science, and one on – well – people.

The collection begins with a poem that makes extraordinary humane connections. ‘Exodus’ equates the heroic deliverance from Dunkirk with the harrowing escapes of refugees from Syria and elsewhere:


Sail 2000 miles, 75 years. Crossing from Tripoli to
Lampedusa, four rubber dinghies sink. Parched travellers
explain money, not drowning, is the hitch. Eight foot waves.


Conditions like slave ship Zong. Frail vessels with invisible
names ghost the deep. Beyond the Harbour Brasserie
a flag flutters on the Kent front. Empty shoes carpet the sea.


Depth of feeling underlies them all, but few of Hope’s poems are so impassioned. Some are simply observant, like ‘Brighton’, in which Hope sketches the panoply of a happy sea-resort where ‘Runners stretch ready for their half-marathon, / shops glisten on the esplanade, language schools  // buzz and bulge…’ It ends with the confession ‘…But how glum/ I feel, burgled of ...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image