What to Wear by Jenny Bornholdt

The eerie cover of What to Wear invites a closer look. Who might have owned the shirt? Will they ever wear it again? Beyond its connection to the title, the image reflects themes in this new collection by Wellington poet Jenny Bornholdt: of memory, absence and loss, unease, and (mistaken) identity. Of just hanging on.

Bornholdt is a former New Zealand poet laureate. She has published over a dozen books of poems, as well as collaborating on many interdisciplinary creative projects involving books and art.

Several poems in her new collection pose disquieting questions: Where was hope? What will become of us? 

Bornholdt writes about decline, illness, dicky tickers, dodgy hearing and bad knees. She reflects on the friends and family members who slip into and out of our lives.

                They were then

they weren’t. They are

then they

                are not.

She alludes to the privilege of growing older, of (still) being able to recognise familiar others.

I see people who, like me,

 have been here for a long

time. Their young faces

live deep inside

their older selves.

Bornholdt’s enduring affinity for nature and the outdoors is reflected in poems that reference creatures, mountains, beaches, backyards.

I then weed

the vegetable garden,

which is mostly

not vegetables, accompanied by

the bright eye of bird.

There is sadness in this collection, but joy too in imagery that lifts the spirit: the kookaburra’s long, wild laugh, a home which smells of laundry and plums, the bright flowers of India. There is gratitude.

…mercifully, occasionally

one sees marvellous things.

These are poems to return to, spare in style and rich in meaning. Reminders that life is finite and unpredictable – to be observed, to be savoured.

Reviewer: Anne Kerslake Hendricks

Te Herenga Waka University Press