Rebel Blood Cells – Jamie Woods
Punk Dust Poetry, 2023
www.punkdust.com

I must confess to a certain trepidation creeping in when I read poetry on illness, or trauma. Will I like it only because I feel I should – a flood of sympathy washing out critical faculties? 

Fortunately, that isn’t the case with this pamphlet, as Jamie Woods, leads the reader on a journey through his cancer diagnosis, its treatment and aftermath. 

With the first two words of the opening poem, ‘I fell’, I found myself drawn into considering this metaphorical language around illness. The notion of ‘falling ill’ suddenly seemed bigger than becoming unwell, but freighted with all kinds of other implications. Perhaps spiritual, as in a fall from a state of Edenic perfection, or a more earthbound descent, where the rest of life, when not ill, is some kind of precarious perch, from where we might easily slip. However this fall is taken, afterwards, everything is changed. 

Woods goes on to explore a variety of feelings, observations and emotions around his experience of illness and its treatment. Throughout, a mix of pop-culture references from Veruca Salt albums, to Boba Fett Hoodies and the unsung purity of Cherry Cola, ensure that however grim the progress of the cancer or its treatment, we never fully plunge into the abyss. 

There is a raw sense of honesty about the poems, whether meditating on the non-silence of a ward, the imagined unfolding of cancelled holidays, or feeling jealous that a visiting friend gets to go home, while he must remain in hospital. One poem addresses Woods’ previous perception of leukaemia – his cancer – as a child’s disease – something people used to raise money for in a Blue Peter Bring and Buy Sale. 

For sure there is vulnerability, confusion and frustration here, but never quite despair. A blood bank is reimagined as holding varieties of vintage red wines, a stroll around a duck pond in hospital grounds becomes a more expansive imaginary landscape, of the type Sebald might stride around. That said, the shadows never fully lift, even once home, after having been given the all clear. In the last section, we learn of Woods suspicion that his illness may simply be biding its time, as PTSD type recollections are triggered by baby shampoo, while cancer is perhaps ‘skulking in the dark/a wounded tiger, regaining its strength.’

A tight, snappy collection, that blends humour, comfort and honesty to keep the pages turning.