Defying the narrative

MUSEUM, by Frances Samuel (THWUP,$25)

ight years ago, when Frances Samuel’s first poetry collection, was published, reviewers noted her delight in imagery that amounted to surrealism. In , her second collection, she often continues in this vein. A poem such as “How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts” could is inspired by her years working in a museum and writing texts for exhibitions. Exhibits take on human characteristics, whether they are seeds, bees or worms. And humans take on the characteristics of exhibits, as in the poem “Exhibition (Biomimicry)”. This isn’t mere whimsy. Samuel is in the serious philosophical business of defining humanity in relation to what is not human. In later poems, she moves away from the museum environment, considers how art itself can become reality, and even produces some poems on the domestic scene that border on the confessional. Physical reality supplants the surreal. It’s quite a ride.