The Bat Had Blue Eyes

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.

Words may never seem quite sufficient, but they are the poet’s medium
through which images are conveyed to express feelings and ideas. Betsy
Warland “lost faith in words” and even “forgot how to read” for
a time, because the “written word was The Bible—The Law,” “The
Word was The Truth” and her childhood abusers “used words to secure
her silence.” In her family “incest [is] quietly passed from
generation to generation until someone breaks the invisible chain.”

In this book, Warland attempts to break the chain, combining prose and
poetry to “tell this old story / in some new way.” The volume
contains five sections: family secrets, photographs, heart lines, little
screams, and the letter. Warland fashions a “bat with blue eyes” as
the metaphor for her abuser, evoking images of other vampires—sexual,
evil persona who deprive victims of their power of speech during
nocturnal encounters. It is not until she faces her abuser that he
shrinks “to normal size lowering his wings.”

Warland’s bibliography has references to the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist
text, and the medicine cards of Native American Jamie Sams. The poet
uses these sources to support her convictions that her abuser can also
be a spiritual guide, that the word can act “as angel not servant,”
and that language can be “the great magician.” With this volume
Warland has joined a long line of poets who have absorbed their pain in
their writing.