Tara Bergin’s first book of poems, This Is Yarrow, was one of the strangest and most assured debuts of recent years. It introduced the reader to an uncanny world we almost recognised, or almost wanted to recognise. Refreshingly, and sometimes unnervingly, Bergin didn’t seem to expect the reader to identify with her. Her new collection, The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx, pushes further into this territory.
The opening poem, “The True Story of Eleanor Marx”, begins with a riddling promise both to say and not to say: “I’m not going to tell you anything/That my psychoanalyst wouldn’t tell you.” Eleanor was Karl’s daughter and, having translated Madame Bovary, she committed suicide, apparently in imitation of the novel’s heroine.
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