Synopsis "Family Name (in English)"
Family Name features three unique poets - Jenny Mitchell, Roy McFarlane, and Zoë Brigley - who consider the act of naming, alongside explorations of family, whether biologically linked or chosen. They also question how names are twisted and debased to dehumanise in domestic and historical settings. Mitchell conjures the experiences of mothers, grandmothers and foremothers who practise an inherent alchemy to recover power and autonomy, especially in relation to the body. She examines how identity may be stolen, but can also be hard-won. McFarlane returns to forebears dedicating poems to Chet Baker, Sylvia Plath, the men of the Ellesmere Canal Yard, and, in the moving 'Haibun for The Fields', to Ishmael Zechariah McFarlane ("my life father"). McFarlane also tackles language, place and conquest, as in 'Call me by my name' where a hurricane refuses the Briticised monikers (Charlie, Gilbert, Dean) allotted it. Brigley's poems explore Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797): her life, her family and the background that created this pioneering feminist. Wollstonecraft is so much more than suggested by Horace Walpole's callous naming of her as a "hyena in petticoats". Family Name offers a call to arms, a refusal to accept injustice and a determination to reclaim identity as a site of power.
