Fallen Grace

Fallen Grace

Fallen Grace is the debut collection of poems by MaryJane Thomson.

Thomson’s book comprises a sequence of 24 poems selected and arranged by HeadworX editor Mark Pirie. These form a selection of her latest poems.

The poems, thought provoking and powerful, bristle with energy and evocative lines, richly layered. Thomson works by the process of thought construction, often using opposite images juxtaposed to build her poems. She offers an original insight in to society.

Auckland poet Riemke Ensing has written on Thomson’s Fallen Grace:
"And then suddenly, something very different to what you might have expected, is sent in the mail, and you’re caught unaware by what you might call the music of the street - a voice looking for a lost self, trying to make sense of the world – personally and politically. A questioning voice that feels marginalized and frequently alienated from much of the material world as we know it, but not necessarily wanting company either. It’s a voice looking for direction, wanting freedom from restraint, yet resorting (at times) to rhyme – wanting to hold on to the familiar without being enslaved. It’s an agitated voice, restless, anxious about conformity, about being ‘swallowed’ into commonality. Sometimes a sense of panic pervades, fear of being self-centered, ‘looking out from within … / your brain the flame’ but in the end, the influence that operates is grace – ‘the gold in the grey is hopeful’ and ‘the light comes in’."

Sample poem:

Leave it to the summer night

Once so grand, oh how you stifle,
like summer into autumn, you leave a non-resurrecting form of matter,
as winter comes (all thanks) it will be strewn.

To assassinate one’s character brings the folly to bloom,
getting through winter on the whiskers of a left over fleeting,
not like a minute, more like a second,
when everything you ever thought stops.
How meanings change, some things just don’t stay the same.

In with spring,
you marvel at the wonderment of how new life can make you forget,
you let the dark out, the light comes in,
but you didn’t know you were stuck in night,
until you got bored of the star light,
something so bright.

Now you can see the light of dusk,
the thoughts of autumn have water,
bringing you to the depth of understanding.

Summer comes you acquiesce,
but the waters so high it gives you fear,
fear to say no running back there.

Poem © MaryJane Thomson 2014