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Review: You are Her, by Linda France

Jane Holland, Poetry Review Vol.100:3, Autumn 2010

Linda France's You Are Her is simply delightful, a collection charged with the emotional chiaroscuro of an eclipsed heart. France has long established herself as a major British voice, and these new poems dwell on absence and error at the centre of our lives. Inspired by a notice board, the title poem You Are Her echoes this theme, always guessing / the missing letter, a perfect mistake. Yet those empty spaces may provide a golden opportunity to illuminate the quest for identity. So Psyche carries a lamp to bed, fearing her unseen new husband to be a monster - when, in fact, he is Love.