The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess is an exhilarating first collection of poems. Using a surrealist palette of imagery and a tightly focused idiom, Ellie Evans takes us on a strange journeys: to the poet-apocalyptic world of the title poem, or into a skeward 18th centuryVenice in ‘The Zograscope’. These strange worlds are always to the purpose; they are, as Marianne Moore famously said of poetry ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them’. The Reader obliquelx unearths childhood trauma, fraught or intense relationships ans also a singular delight in rebellion and in escape through the imagination. Poems like ‘Picnic with Earthquakes’ and ‘Jekyl Island, Georgia’ deftly align exotic locales (Greece and the USA) with intimate states of mind. A fascination with art and history. There is also a palpable delight in technique: the book includes sonnets, a villanelle and triolets , and her concise free verse often employs rhyme, half-rhyme, and subtle alliteration.