fil/Uh traces the lives and bodies of women written and fashioned out of the arts, mythology, and folklore. It is entangled in a web of research subsequently layered in a reimagining of their voices. As a collective, the poems seek to peel back the confines of literary perspective and, ultimately, interrogate what shape consent would take on a page.
Gemma Jackson’s poetry holds weight in each utterance – sparse, compact, and impactful. The language in fil/Uh flings you off the cliff of each line and onto another one you can scarcely balance on before the process repeats itself. These poems effectively stop short of conclusion, leaving the reader passing through the floating door between the cliff and the rocks below: “I see myself in edges only.”
This is a marvelous, albeit painful, short collection. Its scope is as massive as the word count is sparse. Everything here is put exactly where it should be. The poem reflects in itself a body: “none of this is fact. It is paper.” – The page will never fully capture an experience. But it will transmit it the only way it knows how and this, I’d say, is fil/Uh’s great strength to express the “unnatural fascination” that exists on the threshold between art and pain.
– Nathan Hassall
36pp