There was a moment before Rachel Long’s penultimate poem that she took a beat, and you could almost hear the calculation being made: should I do this one?
She did, and as with her other selections as part of poetry outfit TOAST’s strand at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, we were the richer for it.
Her poems are personal and confessional, dealing openly with the physicality of sex as well as the mental aspects of relationships (“only when he’s sleeping / can I breathe out”).
There is a rich literacy on show too, drawing from psalms in her work if not her life – “they were about the only thing that attracted me [to church], other than that I’m going to hell” she joked at one point.
Her poem The Worry People, initially a story about using miniature dolls as a child to soak up her angst, becomes a deep satire of society and herself, as the mannequins turn capitalist and feast on her insecurities, living large on her emotional wreckage.
This was an all-too short set, with plenty of promise for more.
- TOAST continues at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival till Thursday 22 May, featuring A F Harrold, Kareem Parkins Brown, Jo Bell, and Ella Frears.
