Ghost Songs

"Ghost Songs" is a finely tuned collection with an ear for the voices that surround us from birth - the voices of family, of fairy tale, of myth, of strangers and the voices of ghosts: all those voices which cannot be silenced. Take Philomela: raped, imprisoned and with her tongue cutout, she weaves her story into a tapestry and finally becomes the nightingale. Take seven year old Ellie who listens for the creek of the stairs as she dismembers teddy bears or the girl whose heart is cut out only to become a squeeze box telling the story of the universe or the woman recovering from depression who shouts profanities or Aunty May who teaches the rough language of scratchy towels.Gail Ashton not only hears the voices, setting them down with meticulous clarity, but she also sees the places they inhabit and takes us there. We visit the inside of a brown vinyl bag and know a whole life through it, we walk hospital corridors and taste the fear, we visit a canal and hear the music drifting from barges. Gail Ashton conjures whole lives: poignant, affectionate, witty and lucid, this is poetry that allows the ghosts to sing.