Lou-lou

Selima Hill has twice re-entered the underworld of mental breakdown through her poetry. Now, in Lou-Lou, she goes back in time to meet her earlier self, sharing her pain, bewilderment and outrage as she retraces her steps through the institutional labyrinth. The poems are much more shorn of her crazy metaphors yet still recognizably speaking with Selima Hill's voice. Returning to the world - outlandish London in the Swinging Sixties - Lou-Lou ends with her discharge, when `we give not a word of thanks, / not a single smile, / as they lead us away to be normal, / hair-dos swaying'. Lou-Lou takes a different tangent to Selima Hill's other treatments of mental another way in, another way out. It is also a celebration of first love, a belated token of awe and gratitude for the gloriously caring sweet-smelling sister in her skin-tight dress.