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mary_soon_lee's review
4.0
In delving through this year's Elgin-nominated chapbooks, I unearthed treasure: Heather Cox's small volume about the Mole People living beneath London. Here is the second item from the opening poem, "10 Things You Must Understand about Mole People"--
2. Below the cobblestone and double decker
buses, below the corkscrew spin of never-ending
staircases, below the humming tracks of every
fast-moving train, below the London you have
come to know live the mole people.
Five of the poems concern Thomas, a World War II veteran who in 1963 finds a map of the Mole People's Under-Underground. The penultimate poem contains these lines about his war experience:
He drooped soggy like damp cardboard,
folded from exhaustion.
That first night he slept inside
the foxhole, never letting go
of his rifle, like a boy in the dark
clutching his blanket.
Thomas is a sympathetic character, but it was the details about the Mole People that fascinated and delighted me. As a child, I loved Mary Norton's stories of the Borrowers, another secret community of tiny people. But the Mole People are not imitations of the Borrowers. They are their own true selves. Here is item eight from "10 Things You Must Understand about Mole People"--
8. When London is shrouded in grey, when rain
bursts into pavements, when the wind is also
propelling the rain, one mole will be selected to
climb up wooden steps, through tunnels, up iron
ladders, through hidden holes and crevices and
passageways and in between tall brick walls, to
sneak to the surface and smell the rain, to feel the
splash and taste the wet, to tell the others.
Highly recommended. And I want a sequel.
2. Below the cobblestone and double decker
buses, below the corkscrew spin of never-ending
staircases, below the humming tracks of every
fast-moving train, below the London you have
come to know live the mole people.
Five of the poems concern Thomas, a World War II veteran who in 1963 finds a map of the Mole People's Under-Underground. The penultimate poem contains these lines about his war experience:
He drooped soggy like damp cardboard,
folded from exhaustion.
That first night he slept inside
the foxhole, never letting go
of his rifle, like a boy in the dark
clutching his blanket.
Thomas is a sympathetic character, but it was the details about the Mole People that fascinated and delighted me. As a child, I loved Mary Norton's stories of the Borrowers, another secret community of tiny people. But the Mole People are not imitations of the Borrowers. They are their own true selves. Here is item eight from "10 Things You Must Understand about Mole People"--
8. When London is shrouded in grey, when rain
bursts into pavements, when the wind is also
propelling the rain, one mole will be selected to
climb up wooden steps, through tunnels, up iron
ladders, through hidden holes and crevices and
passageways and in between tall brick walls, to
sneak to the surface and smell the rain, to feel the
splash and taste the wet, to tell the others.
Highly recommended. And I want a sequel.
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