Tori Pearmain

The best poetry collections are the ones you know you will return to, that have poems which can offer emotional support on a re-read, whether that be comfort, understanding, or solidarity in rage. Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit is a collection I think I’ll be returning to for years to come.

One of my favourite ever of Campbell’s poems is the winner of the Spelt Magazine 2022 poetry competition, The Hospital is Not My House. You can view the poem on the Spelt Magazine website here. In this anthology, we are treated to a third stanza and a sequence of poems in the same style. These poems are a raw look at the feeling of having decisions about your body made for you as a child, “the magicians cut open her skull to excavate her shark teeth”. There is a disassociation with reality created in the imagery of circus and magic infused in poems such as The Body Festival, followed up with stark reminders that the “freak show” was a real form of entertainment in the Victorian era.

Nature imagery is skilfully used in what I found to be one of the most evocative poems in the collection, Alopecia, available on Jen Campbell’s website here. Metaphor such as “The first creature that falls from my head is a hedgehog” feels tactile, weighted, and surprising. The line “Before long, I am a petting zoo” suggests the clumps are multiplying and an increased need for the hair to be touched, arranged, and checked. The imagery of hats as “tiny nests” had me pondering whether the hat holds the hair below it in place or if wayward strands cling to it above. Campbell refers to herself as “a magician, a conjurer”, exploring this imagery in a multi-faceted way, questioning whether all is as it seems when someone is dressed and made-up.

I am truly grateful that the poem When I Revisit This Room, I Want to Leave Again exists. Anytime a writer describes an experience of medical negligence (whether it would hold up in court or is simply a complete lack of empathy or respect to a person’s mind, feelings, or body) is an act of bravery. This is the start of several poems detailing Campbell’s tumultuous experience with IVF, touching on miscarriage and the unfair lens that the disabled body can be viewed through. It is followed up by a poem called Poem as Bad Doctor, one I will be returning to as and when needed, which describes the infuriating need to sometimes bring someone else to your doctor’s appointment (to help credibility – I say this with a massive sigh) and then watch as a doctor discusses your body with the other party. This experience is unfortunately a common theme in work by disabled authors – it’s something I’ve touched on in some of my own forthcoming work.

If themes of folklore, nature, the body, disability, and fertility interest you, give Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit a go. For anyone hesitant about poetry, I promise you don’t need an English Literature degree. My way in was simply reading a bunch of poetry collections from the library until I worked out what my taste was. Jen Campbell’s poems are evocative and the imagery is relatable. She frequently reads her poems and discusses her work on her YouTube channel, so if I haven’t managed to convince you, look her up and hear about her work in her own words.