I’ve just belatedly caught up with Colette Bryce’s Self-Portrait in the Dark. I found it highly accomplished and enjoyable, full of tart but buoyant humour and engaging in the insights it gave into Bryce’s life and feelings.

Muldoon’s seems very much the dominant influence in tone and style. This appears in Bryce’s way of rhyming and in much of her phrasing, but above all in the way she uses metaphor and simile. Most of the poems that made the strongest impression on me follow Muldoon’s technique of elaborating far-fetched comparisons or conceits. However, Bryce doesn’t have the wild subversiveness of mind … Continue Reading