“Might this be what metaphors are for? / To say what it’s like before you hit what it is.” These lines, taken from the appropriately titled “The Cliffs of Mistake,” could be the very summation of The Second Blush, Molly Peacock’s sixth collection of poetry – a book in which we encounter a writer grappling with her husband’s illness against the backdrop of routine home life, through a series of representations, both concrete and symbolic.
The sentiment behind Peacock’s attempts here seems wholly believable and sincere. Unfortunately, the execution is frequently uneven, marked by forced end-rhyme and what often amounts to the production of clichéd imagery. The result, thus, is a collection that, while certainly well-intentioned, is somewhat unfulfilling.
The shame of all this, of course, is that there are moments of clarity and precision within The Second Blush, most notably when Peacock turns her gaze towards the ordinary and the seemingly mundane – whether it be an engraved lucky charm in “Good Fortune” (“a tiny man inscribed / on the good luck charm begins to get up / from his lotus pad and put on his shoes.”) or the lessons learned from discarded office supplies in “Pink Paperclip” (“inspiring my new goal: / to personify everything, / each in the bloom of its use.”).
Oddly enough, though the book is largely concerned with the relationship between a wife and her husband, the most intriguing intimate depiction that we are provided involves a pair of loving felines in “Fellini the Cat” and (subsequently) “Widow”—two poems that manage to effectively negotiate meaning, all while avoiding the pitfalls of cynicism to one side and melodrama on the other.
One may be interested as to exactly why the most potentially gut-wrenching and challenging poems within The Second Blush largely fail while Peacock’s simple, domestic works more or less succeed. Perhaps, and understandably so, less is at stake within these latter poems and, consequently, they seem much more comfortable inside their own skin.
Ultimately, a great deal will depend on the readers’ goals and expectations for The Second Blush. Fans of Peacock’s previous work may find much to interest them here, as she provides a closer look into her personal life. For other readers, an excursion into The Second Blush, while engaging at times, is unlikely to leave much of a lasting impression.