Unwritten Woman

Hannah Lavery

Book of the Month: August 2024

Reviewed by Titilayo Farukuoye

& I burn. set a fire
come to them

like a blaze.
leave them ashes

(throw back their
cum like mercy)

sitting in the gloaming
behind the beach wall

fingernails
dirty wi tobacco

the haar calling
me in

salt air
curing. the sea

brings its shells
&i crush them to white

powder. wear it
like a war cry.

From ‘Coloured Girl Went to a Party: After Ntzake Shang’

Hannah Lavery’s latest collection commemorates the strength that exists in gender marginalised and BPOC peoples’ communities. Her poems claw back ceremoniously the stories of marginalised women and laugh at Empire.

In Unwritten Women, formerly quieted realities are pushed to the front. The collection, part re-telling of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, spotlights the women once written out. Emboldened, we join characters as they step into the centre of the page and scream until the void, the margins and in between the lines (anywhere our stories have been pushed to), come into sharp focus: Out of the haar emerges community, people to shout furiously with, until we know that our experiences are truth – reality.

Regardless, whether you know The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde or not, you will be intrigued by the craftswomanship Lavery employs to tell stories of oppression and violence that never fail to embolden and draw close those experiencing harm. Despite the violence, I don’t feel hopeless reading Unwritten Woman, quite the opposite, the full picture painted by Lavery allows us to bear witness, mourn and draw strength from ourselves and the people around and before us. There are no victims but survivors in this book – we see ourselves and our peers and we heal seeing each other.

The retelling particularly drives home the point that our oppressive structures can only exist because the Dr Jekylls of this world continue to let the Mr Hydes trample over us – the combination of their violence (perpetuation and complicity) fuel a perpetual system of oppression.

Read aloud, Lavery’s poems perform themselves. I am instantly enchanted by Lavery’s ferocious skills as playwright, creating visceral experiences as the words reverberate in my body. Unwritten Woman is specked with dramaturgical elements, ‘Theatre Announcements’ regularly have me cackle out loud in Part Two of the book.

It’s important to remember that Unwritten Woman is not only the fierce work of speaking back, Lavery also creates spaces for much gentleness, love, vulnerability and calm. She reaches for her late father, is in awe with friends and family and takes us along to events and a concert in the Scottish Creative scene.

 and I think to tell her what she means
 to me but instead take her empty plate

 back to the counter, wiping
 the crumbs from our table
 (with my sleeve).

From ‘On seeing Alberta Whittle’s exhibition, Create Dangerously, with my friend at the Scottish gallery of modern art in Edinburgh’

If you pick up this book, you will no longer be able to look away and dismiss us as we rise and resist patriarchy and White Supremacy. Perhaps, you’ll even be compelled to join?

Unwritten Woman is published by Polygon. Order here.

Titilayo Farukuoye is a writer, educator and organiser based in Glasgow. Titilayo co-directs the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and is a co-winner of the 2022 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.