This debut collection of poetry ranges in subject matter across the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, belonging and emigration, troubling aspects of childhood and parenthood, and sexuality and desire. According to The Western Mail the author 'is an important new voice in literature in Wales and beyond'.

Mae casgliad cyntaf y bardd yn rhoi sylw i bynciau sy'n amrywio o'r gwrthdaro rhwng Israel a'r Palestiniaid, perthyn ac allfudo, agweddau gofidus ar blentyndod a bod yn rhieni, rhywioldeb a chwant. Yn ol y 'Western Mail' mae'r awdur yn "llais newydd, pwysig, yn llenyddiaeth Cymru a thu hwnt".

Now settled in Mid-Wales, Jasmine Donahaye has lived in California and is of a Jewish family. She has also studied Celtic literature. All of these influences are revealed in her poetry but the overwhelming preoccupations are female experience and interfemale relationships.

In the first group of poems, ‘Deceits’, her Jewish strand is most evident. Uncomfortable visits to Israel and the Kibbutz reveal the land from which her mother came but which seems stolen and unnatural. Irish and Welsh myth are woven together with an abortion story in 'Termination', a tortured and tortuous poem. ‘The Private View' is a powerful interpretation of Shani Rhys James’s 'Black cot' paintings (used here as the cover image). The female group is centred on a baby with the ‘face of Eve/ caught with the first sharp taste of/ Knowledge on her tongue’.

Taste and physical sensation are very present in this collection, even overwhelming, perhaps, in the 'Natural processes’ section - certainly not for the squeamish. They carry a potent charge on motherhood, sexuality, tensions between mother and daughters, even child-murder in the chilling ‘Mother-love’.

An interesting, self-contained group in the ‘Natural World’ section is called ‘Lament for Codornices Creek’. This is California but not Hollywood -'A savage place' of watery green heat and wildlife on the edge of a poisoned industrial wasteland. Moments of beauty - 'a plume of steam . . . white and glorious/ in the dawn light’ - are followed by 'chemical stench'. Yet she regrets its loss for the sake of the wild grace of butterflies, hawks and 'the great egret with its shivering plumes'.

As with much of this collection - you wouldn't want to go there - but Donahaye makes you taste the air.

Caroline Clark

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatad Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.