Feverfew by Anna Saunders is a heady operatic plunge rooted in the complexities of humanity and nature. Set to a score of rich lyricism and language that knows when to crescendo and when to whisper, these verses echo long after the last note has ended, leaving the reader both singed and refreshed.

We Are Nature

Surely these white stars will heal?

Their heady scent fills my rooms, like an animal
moulting musky fur.

I dreamt I pushed my petals into your mouth
to soothe your throbbing head.

My realms are sky, the moon is mine.

–Feverfew, Anna Saunders, Feverfew

This poem is a perfect example of how Saunders stitches together what we often separate into categories. Many times I have said myself that I am going out ‘into’ nature. It has taken me years to understand that I am also nature, that there is no going out into it. We are a complex organisation of organisms that are meant to co-exist and work together for survival. Just as the smallest sapling struggling in a network of trees sends signals to its elders for assistance, here we see the same thirst for help through the mystery of dreams, calling out to natural counterparts and asking for assistance, begging for healing.

In these lines we are not merely observers, but are thrust into all of the senses and aligned with the mysteries of things we cannot see but only smell or touch or feel. Feverfew is given an active presence as it pushes and soothes with a healing that not only goes to its typical medicinal remedy, but cracks open the sky and embraces reflected light in an attempt to reach the source of pain.

 

Abduction Allegory

I laid out every flower from which he could feed,
gave him ripe fruit so he guzzled and swooned

but when he flew towards the window and battered
against the glass I pulled down the blinds.

I couldn’t blame him for wanting the wild flower meadows,
beauty draws its double

but I wanted him
with his mirrored wings, to reflect back only me.

–I Stole a Butterfly, Anna Saunders, Feverfew

 

The mantras of a toddler are simple: I wanted it, therefore it is mine. What is this base human need to posses? Is it instinct baked into our existence, or is it something we learn from the first pull of oxygen we claim at birth? As I read this poem I traveled down two roads.

The first was this crime against nature and the beautiful wildness of a butterfly, possessed into death. Trees give us oxygen and in return we chop them down and chip them into pressed wood for flat pack disposable lives. They become showroom worthy and part of a curated feed fashioned as a bespoke life. But then we are astonished by the lack of trees, by climate change, by all of the damage we just didn’t know we were capable of in this world. Distill this into a butterfly, captured and worn as a ‘plumy’ brooch, described here by Saunders and we have a stark, small example of how human craving can cause immense and irreversible suffering when left unchecked.

My second meandering was into my own experience of being possessed by an abuser. At first, I too, was fed enough ripe fruit to guzzle and swoon. Then the blinds were pulled and I was isolated, plunged in darkness and cut off from beauty. Pushed into a world where I was sure to die, but unlike this butterfly, I found a crack in a window. The craving my abuser had to possess, to control what he once saw as a prize for his collection quickly lost its shine as I beat my battered wings and lost the lustre of life.

Again, I ask. This craving, this need to possess and the refusal to think about the consequences beyond a human desire- where does this come from? How do we begin to grow compassion that overtakes craving? The brilliance of these poems is that they cease to become simply words on a page, but instead leave allegories, connections and questions for us to ponder.

In Conclusion

I’ve only chosen a couple of poems to highlight from this collection, but there were so many others that are worthy of discussion. Feverfew, by Anna Saunders is lush with rich description, precise word choices and phrasing that sings off the page. The range of emotion is vast, so much like nature– so much like our human experience.

Feverfew, by Anna Saunders, is available for purchase now from Indigo Dreams.

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