A Review of Imago Literary Journal
The excerpt from Post-Colonial is a little more difficult. Because the piece starts in the middle of the story, it is difficult to get the flow, or to begin to become involved with the characters. However, judging from what is there, the piece has a similar feel to Matthew Kneale’s English Passengers as it enters the mind of the captain of the Rainbow as it brings cargo, seemingly a piano, from the Isle of Wight to the Cocos Island. The captain is well drawn, and the anticipation and fear of the sailors is clearly felt, with the kind of poetic, lyrical writing which Kinsella is known for.
The story section includes "Genuine Human Hair", a piece which looks at insecurity and longing, and although the narrative is a little rough and unpolished, the story is moving, with the narrator’s desperation for a new identity typified by a long blond wig found in a thrift shop. "A Bedroom Story" takes place in the mind of a cold and obsessive woman. Her thoughts, and even a slight hint of vulnerability leave a distinctly chilly impression on the reader, which creates an effective narrative. "The White Painting", a microfiction, is also chilling, its brief story delving into issues of insanity, art, and beauty.
The poetry is patchy, moving from Jan Owen’s "Limes", a well written piece with powerful imagery, but whose movement from fruit to “two terrified heads” somewhat obscure in its reference. "Offering" is a much clearer piece, combining the images of bat guano, and the memory of a son in a way which evokes that familiar sense of maternal anxiety and inadequacy: “It was a makeshift time/but I got some things half-right,/uncupping my hands and showing him/calm and alert/that integer of the night.” In "Another Nature Poem", Geraldine McKenzie shares a moment of reflection with a World War II ghost, bringing together a lovely contrast between the beauty of the landscape: “the light of heaven/singles where it falls as though/this fern, this slender dragonfly, are paradigm so vibrant/all other memories falters”, and the fear and pain of the soldiers who would have died on the same ground. Its language is evocative, and powerful, as it evokes Wilfred Owen, and a shared cigarette: we smoke and chase its random issue/into blue, offering our softness to/the sun, the guns a natural mutter/as a small plane flits above us.”
From there the poetry declines in power though, moving
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