Muskox and Goat Songs

Beryl Baigent is a poet; her published collections include Absorbing the
Dark, Hiraeth: In Search of Celtic Origins, Triptych: Virgins, Victims,
Votives, and Mystic Animals.

Divided into five sections, this wonderful book demonstrates the
author’s extensive knowledge of mythology, natural history, and
literature.

The first section, The Muskox Poems, introduces poet, lover, various
members of her family, and the endangered Arctic species muskox: “I am
the muskox and walk upon the earth / pawing my living from beneath the
snow / ... and I love my herd.” We hear of “muskox” creation as
the poet’s husband chips “out the shapes / she combing stone into
hair.” Allusions to Keats and the Beatles connect these poems to the
romantics, yet there is also a zoological perspective in “Advanced
Courtship” that brings the reader down to earth.

Dualities inform the second section, Stubborn Memory in Stubborn Root.
A noisy mall is yoked with a library, innocents who “play at play”
are juxtaposed with those who “suffer guilt and shame.” Pain /
pleasure, student / teacher, coal cellar / Catholic hospital express a
philosophy that holds the archetypal shadow to be an integral part of
life.

Section 3, Pilgrimages, presents poems that explore English and Greek
roots. Here, mother is a “small wood violet / that has blossomed each
spring for sixty years,” and father is “snorting, steaming, cursing
the cold.”

The fourth section, Tempean Echoes, touches on family history and
memories, and provides a “small oasis of transition” before entering
the contemporary world of the final section, Leather Weddings—love
poems with a difference! The ox makes a reappearance in “Jovan White
Musk for Men.”

Alternating between comedy and tragedy, and held together by the figure
of the muskox, this is a book to spend time with.