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Elizabeth Barrett -
The Bat Detector.

"Elizabeth Barrett has a right to melancholy but does not claim it [her poems] are full of a controlled emotion which in lesser talents too easily tips into stale rhetoric or sentimentality. In Barrett there is honesty, never self-pity." (prop)

"This poet reassures us of her ability - her quality - as a writer, the minute we begin to read. The language is natural and easy.
We are listening to a friend confiding in us, enthralling us, over a cup of coffee. All our concerns, all our common, but individual experiences of contemporary living are mirrored here in these well wrought verse-tales. After reading these poems you will feel that you are Elizabeth Barrett's most intimate friend. Not only is it the sureness of this poetry that convinces me that it is the work of a significant voice, but also its range... Humanity, intelligence and a perceptive honesty about herself and the world are her characteristics. And while the poems have a universality they are not a-sexual - they could only have been written by a woman, and go deep into the subjective and objective preoccupations of that sexual definition, but not predictably. Female readers of this book will understand; male readers will be informed and quite probably seduced."

(Kevin Bailey, HQ Magazine)

THE BAT DETECTOR

At the weekend you audit the parts-
list resistor, capacitor and circuit board,
order pieces of kit on the kitchen table,
collect screwdrivers and knives.
You are building a Bat Detector-
a Magenta Mark II with built-in speaker
and volume control. Straightforward assembly -
some soldering, cutting and drilling of holes.

You show me the leaflet; point to a picture
of a small plastic box with two dials,
one marked with kHz, and tell me how different
species register on different frequencies -
that our ears hear only as high as 20,
but above that, in a band of ultrasound,
we will find the call of Pipistrelle, Horseshoe,
Daubenton's and Natterer's bats.

Our detector will convert these calls for us.
We will hear them chatter at dusk, before
the roost, pick up the din of their 'feeding buzz'.
We will hear the high-pitched squeak of baby bats
calling for their mother. You are absorbed by this-
work all afternoon drilling the casing,
soldering resistors and chips on a copper circuit,
manipulating tweezers to thread thin wire.

I stumble, clumsy, through the house
collecting toys and nappies. I heave and sigh.
I wash the pots and stir the saucepans,
fiddle with exhausted pens, a late assignment.
I break and snap. I play peek-a-boo, show
the children how to match their shape blocks,
push them through. I retreat to the attic, hang
upright by my thumbs. I need support from you.

We have a child with two year's worth of words
and another, older, who does not understand
the social order, cannot play or speak.
You are fixing frequencies on your box-
tuning us out, neglecting to hear your son's squeak.
You are adjusting your volume control, turning
down the sound of me, wailing on long wave -
pitching my 20kHz calls down the stairs.

Elizabeth Barrett
The Bat Detector.
Wrecking Ball Press
ISBN 1-903110-27-0