The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Like an oil painting, ‘Now You Can Look’ is a work built up of layers. The colourful subject of its narrative is a woman who takes one glance at what the early twentieth century has set out for her, and throws in her lot with art instead. On the surface, Julia Bird’s poems are beautifully textured, conjuring a life rich with ‘whispering pelts’ in theatre cloakrooms, a yellow kimono with its hem ‘like cut/butter from an icebox’, and the intricacies of an artistic practice where ‘the fern’s already in the wood.’ Look closer, and the underpainting starts to show.