St Valentine's Day

Kimberly Fahner is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the Memorial
University of

Newfoundland.

The title of this poetry collection conjures up conventional
greeting-card images of red hearts and flowers. The bloodstains that
splatter the front cover, then, are in sharp contrast. Herewith is the
first hint of Footman’s tendency to shock. While some lines in her
poems might strike a poetic chord, others have been contrived to make
the reader feel uncomfortable with crude language and derogatory
phrasings.

Footman works at subverting the traditional image of woman. Allusions
to goddess-worship and witchcraft are emphasized by the poet’s
(re)appropriation of conventional Catholic images. The image of the
moon, for instance, becomes the “holy mother full of grace.” In
“The Prick,” about the Spanish Inquisition, an accused woman
“mastered plants, / held wicked secrets, / traced patterns of
leaves” in pagan or druidic fashion, but was forced to renounce her
true faith and assume the tenets of Christianity in order to be allowed
to live.

Footman also deals with the image of the “perfect” woman, as it is
dictated by a patriarchal society. In an intertwined pair of poems,
“Amputations” and “Venus de Milo,” she focuses on the mental and
physical mutilation of the female. The heartbreaking image of a young
bulimic girl in “Outside the Royal Court Theatre, London” further
emphasizes the power of societal expectations.

While some might find Footman’s raw style off-putting, it does have
its advantages; she doesn’t pull her punches when dealing with the
mental and physical abuses that have been visited on womankind.