Naomi Foyle's latest poetry collection, Salt & Snow, has been praised for its emotional depth and political awareness. The collection, which includes elegies for both private individuals and public figures such as John Berger and George Floyd, has been described as a strong contender for a major literary prize.
This week's featured poem, 'Salt, Snow, Earth', adds 'earth' to the title's elements and explores the relentless cycle of human violence through a brutal symbolic game. The poem uses anaphora and percussive language to convey the escalating pace of conflict, with lines like 'And so it goes, on and on and on / round and round in every shade of hand — claw-teeth, hard palm, fist —'.
The poem's structure shifts from brief sentences to fragmented syntax, mimicking the chaos of violence. It questions the consequences of such actions, asking 'Whose bodies are blanketed? Whose bodies blanked out? What are the odds white wins?' The final lines suggest a despairing sarcasm, highlighting the erasure and annihilation that violence brings.
Foyle's collection also includes a prose poem titled 'The Dark Earth', dedicated to 'all those cut down due to their nature', which contrasts the cultivation of life with the horrors of destruction. The poet, who has recovered from cancer, writes with empathy for both individual tragedies and the common prospect of death.
