Morag Anderson, the 2023 Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland) and a first-wave poet of The Whiskey Tree, has firmly established herself as a unique voice in contemporary poetry. Known for her unflinching exploration of silenced voices and marginalised identities, Anderson’s work delves into the complexities of human experience with striking imagery and raw emotion. Her chapbook Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s introduced her talent for crafting poems charged with survival and desire, while her later collection And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound showcases a significant development in her use of poetic form, nature, and mythological symbolism. Anderson’s poetic voice evolves from gritty realism to a broader, more expansive lyricism, reflecting her growth as a writer.
Anderson’s Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s is marked by its visceral, raw engagement with themes of exploitation, power, and survival. The poems in this collection are grounded in the physical body and the stark realities of transactional relationships, often exposing the dehumanising aspects of human interaction. “Killing Time in the Relatives’ Room” captures the sterile, liminal space of waiting for death. The details of the room—the “swamp-green carpet” and the “empty box of tissues”—create a claustrophobic atmosphere, where the emotional weight of loss is highlighted by the understated, clinical setting. The poem’s conclusion, “news of quitters arrives quietly on white shoes”, introduces Anderson’s characteristic juxtaposition of the banal with the profound, a technique she uses to enhance the emotional impact of everyday objects.
Similarly, “After Work Drinks, Holborn” offers a piercing examination of an encounter shaped by desire and emotional obligation. The speaker’s awareness of the situation’s impermanence—”present company / is troublesome luggage”—mirrors the tone of Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s as a whole: relationships are often fleeting, burdened by societal expectations, and leave behind a sense of unresolved tension. Anderson’s language is sharp and evocative, using similes like “crushed cardamom seeds” to infuse a seemingly mundane moment with sensory depth. Yet, the emotional cost is clear when the speaker “slip[s] the ring back on [her] finger,” signifying a return to conventional roles and a fleeting escape from them.
“Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s” and “Cherries” delve deeper into themes of exploitation and commodification. The former is a brutal, unflinching look at the speaker’s position in a system that views bodies as disposable: “an emaciated mare barely good for glue.” Anderson’s use of metaphor is stark, dehumanising, yet evocative, capturing the speaker’s emotional and physical exhaustion. “Cherries” similarly engages with sensuality and destruction, invoking decadent imagery in a way that feels both indulgent and macabre. The lines “pour me over ice / smashed like fallen birds” combine rich sensuality with violent imagery, reflecting the tension between pleasure and decay that permeates much of Anderson’s early work.
In contrast, Anderson’s second collection, And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound, reflects a clear evolution in her approach to poetic themes and form. While still engaged with the struggles of marginalised voices, this collection introduces a more mythological and natural dimension to her work. The emotional intensity of her previous poems remains, but Anderson now integrates more expansive, symbolic imagery, using nature and myth to explore vulnerability, resilience, and identity.
“Night Swim” showcases this growth in poetic depth. The loch becomes a powerful metaphor for both fear and transformation, as the speaker inches into the “ink” of the water, a striking metaphor for the darkness and unknown that lies ahead. The language remains sensuous—”the loch’s fist clench[es] my chest”—but there is a shift towards openness and submission to nature’s forces. The figure observing from the “wood’s edge” adds a mythic quality, suggesting a connection to the greater forces at play. The poem transcends its initial focus on fear and vulnerability, incorporating a broader meditation on personal growth and transcendence.
“Hollowing a Mountain” also illustrates Anderson’s increasing engagement with themes of labour and spirituality, blending the physical and the divine. In her portrayal of the “Tunnel Tigers” working away at the stone, Anderson transforms an act of labour into a spiritual journey. The stars “partition the sky like Stations of the Cross,” imbuing the men’s work with a sense of pilgrimage, yet the closing lines—”But this far from home, God is small and frivolous”—return to a theme of dislocation and loss of faith. Here, Anderson’s use of religious imagery reflects her growing ability to intertwine personal and universal experiences, revealing the emotional and spiritual toll of survival.
In “A Girl Like Me”, Anderson maintains the defiance seen in her earlier collection but incorporates a new emphasis on language as a tool for resistance. The speaker’s rebellion—”She’s throwing bricks, splintering the door”—is visceral, but the poem concludes with an assertion of the power of writing: “execute, with pencil on paper.” This represents a shift from the physical struggles depicted in Sin Is Due to Open to a more internal, intellectual form of defiance. Language becomes a means of reclaiming power, a theme that recurs throughout And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound.
Finally, “A Woman Stops Writing a Poem” exemplifies Anderson’s growing engagement with mythic and collective narratives. The poem begins with a personal creative struggle, but quickly expands to suggest a broader commentary on silenced women, invoking the image of “forgotten women from hollow trees.” The wind, described as “an unbroken colt,” suggests both untamed potential and the natural forces beyond human control. In this poem, Anderson moves from the intimate spaces of personal blockage to a collective reclamation of voice, tying individual experience to a larger feminist awakening.
Between these two collections, Anderson’s growth as a poet is evident in both her thematic exploration and her poetic technique. In Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s, her focus is on the immediate, gritty realities of survival, exploitation, and emotional resilience. The environments in these poems are confined and oppressive, often reflecting transactional relationships where bodies are commodified and desire is tainted by power dynamics. Anderson’s language is raw and unflinching, evoking a sense of desperation and isolation.
By the time of And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound, Anderson’s poetry has evolved, introducing a more reflective, expansive lyricism. Her use of mythological imagery, nature, and symbolism reveals a poet who has deepened her engagement with broader, universal themes while maintaining the emotional intensity that characterises her work. The personal struggles of her speakers are now often tied to larger narratives of history, identity, and survival. Anderson’s growth is most evident in her use of language as a form of resistance and transformation, as seen in “A Girl Like Me” and “A Woman Stops Writing a Poem”. These poems move beyond the individual and personal, suggesting a collective reclamation of silenced voices.
In both collections, Morag Anderson’s ability to navigate the complexities of human experience through sharp, evocative imagery remains a constant. However, her development as a poet is clear in the shift from the stark realism of Sin Is Due to Open in a Room Above Kitty’s to the more expansive, symbolic world of And I Will Make of You a Vowel Sound. This growth marks Anderson as a significant voice in contemporary poetry, one who continues to push the boundaries of form and subject matter while remaining deeply attuned to the marginalised and silenced.
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The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
