Bianca Bowers’ Love is a Song She Sang From a Cage: Poetry Review
All’s fair in love and war, as the Old Fart of Avon, or Stratford, or Wherever TF, once said. (It wasn't Shakespeare though. Okay? Do not attribute that to Shakespeare. He was the Bard. Not the Fart. Also, I just checked attribution.) Bearing that in mind, if there’s a theme permeating Bianca Bowers’ terrific Love is a Song She Sang From a Cage , it’s love, as the title suggests. Although the love on display is not just in the negative sense described by the title, the poems are thematically driven by a loss of love, or love that is less than salubrious in the senses of romance or mutual respect. Whether the poet’s voice is playing the dom or the sub in the relationships described, Bowers is on form with an awesome series of analogies – such as having a remote-controlled heart, or identifying with Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct character Catherine Trammell. These images are found in two of the darker pieces. Playing out the idea of remote-controlled love, with wires and an eponymo...