The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: Rebecca Goss

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

The poet, Rebecca Goss, shows Frank life in a rearview mirror. The poems referenced are ‘Pheasant in Rear-View Mirror’ and ‘Sylvia’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFriills.ca. Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's poetry podcast. This week I want to look at a poet called Rebecca Goss, who's a contemporary poet, and I discovered her through a collection which she produced called Latch, which was published in 2023. And it's just good. It's good. I just kept reading it and reading it. And when I say good, I mean very good. I know I wouldn't cover just good on this podcast. I meant it was excellent. And so, yeah, so I want to look at that, the work of Rebecca Goss.

This collection latch is all set in Suffolk. Just a bit of background, Rebecca Goss was born in Suffolk and then lived there until she was 18. And then like many teenagers who grow up in rural areas, she headed for the bright lights of the big city. Then she moved back to Suffolk about 10 years before Latch was published, I would say. She moved back with her daughter

who then grew up there just as Rebecca Goss had done. grew up there just as just as Rebecca Goss had done. I mention this family connection because it's relevant to the poem I'm about to read to you. So I guess this is a poem, a speaker... no. I was going to give you more information but I'm actually what I'm going to do is not tell you the title of the poem. I'm going to read the first stanza and then I'm going to go to the title and that is a deliberate ploy on my part. You'll see why.

Here comes the first stanza of this unnamed as yet poem from Rebecca Goss. Okay, it's a great opener, it's the only eye seat. So you know that something has been seen, you don't know what it is, you know there's more than one person, there's someone other than the speaker there, or the speaker would not say only eye seat. Running the width of the glass you imagine maybe being seen from a window. Parting grass is an eager scurry. I love that phrase. Something about eager scurry, it sounds almost Elizabethan. Anyway, it's plumage a spectacle and your shiny fringe bobbing in the foreground and then you think well So is this someone with a fringe standing in front of the window

Obscuring the view of this scampering. Well, it has plumage a bird Then I'll tell you what the title is. The title is pheasant in a rear-view mirror and the whole thing then changes I think. Only I see, we know what the it is because the title has told us, the pheasant running the width of the glass so the rear-view mirror we see cover the width of the rear-view mirror parting grasses in eager scurry its plumage a spectacle and your shiny fringe bobbing in the foreground. When we know it's a rear-view mirror the fact that the fringe is in the foreground means that the other person is in the back seat. That is the only way they would be in the foreground of something

that's being seen in the rear view mirror and which is parting grasses, so is clearly exterior. Why have I gone through all that, did you say? Why didn't I just tell you the title and get on with it? Well, I'm kind of interested in the titles of poems. There is a whole school of philosophy, the deconstructionists, I guess it would be, who don't like titles, who feel, they talk about the tyranny of the title, that the writer is telling the reader what to think from the beginning.

Rebecca Goss is saying, "'Pheasant in a rear view mirror, get that in your head, that's what it's going to be. I'm not saying she's being tyrannical. What I'm saying is the title, whatever the deconstructionists say, works well here because it gives us two crucial facts, that there's a pheasant and that the speaker is in a motor car looking at it through a rear view mirror, thus what she sees is likely to be fleeting and momentary. And I think getting those things out of the way in the title frees up that first dance,

it gives it more space for an emotional and an impressionistic response, not encumbered by having to tell us where we are and what we're seeing and how we're seeing it. So I would say this is a title that's helpful rather than manipulative. So there, okay. Only I see it. So there. Okay.

Only I see it. So already there's a separation between her and the other. She is seeing something which the person we're going to find out in the back seat isn't seeing. Running the width of the glass parting grasses. I just want to say that line of the glass parting grasses. I just want to say that line of the glass parting grasses would have some beautiful assonance in it, assonance being sort of repeated rhyming vowel sounds.

It would have that if I didn't come from West Bromwich. I've heard Rebecca Goss read this poem and then it becomes of the glass parting grasses and the sound almost sounds to me like the swish of grass being parted but when I say of the glass parting grasses you lose that completely. I can only apologize. Only I see it. Present tense and something exclusive to the speaker. Running the width of the glass, parting grasses in eager scurry.

It's plumageage a spectacle and your shiny fringe bobbing in the foreground. So this creature that we know to be a pheasant has run, suddenly run the length of the rearview mirror. Only I see it running the width of the glass, parting grasses in eager scurry. It's plumage, a spectacle, and your shiny fringe bobbing in the foreground. Now what happens there, I think,

is we're all on the bird. Only I see it running the width of the glass, parting grasses in eager scurry. It's plumage, a spectacle. It's the bird, all on the bird. Only I see it running the width of the glass parting grasses in eager scurry. It's plumage, a spectacle. It's the bird. It's the bird and your shiny fringe. Suddenly it's the person in the back seat bobbing in the foreground. That encourages me to somehow contrast and compare the bird and the person in the back seat.

It's that sudden switch. Glass parting grasses in eager scurry, its plumage a spectacle and your shiny fringe bobbing in the foreground. They are somehow, they are joined together by that sudden switch. They're mentioned in the same, literally in the same breath when you read it. When they're bobbing in the foreground, I think you already imagine a child as well, the energy of a child, someone who bobs in a back seat, and someone who's small enough that you'd only see their fringe in the rear-view mirror. And I think the movement and the plumage of the pheasant, and I guess also the movement and the plumage of the child,

if we can call a shiny fringe plumage, they both suggest energy and life, and at this point they're both sort of contained in some way, they are. They're sort of enclosed in this great symbol of anxiety, the rear-view mirror. So they they feel slightly trapped. These one bobbing, one scurrying, one with a fabulous spectacular plumage and one with a shiny fringe. I'm going to read the next two stanzas together. We're about to make our way inside a wood, parked at its entrance, yet I let the engine tick a little longer, this encounter holding a small significance. Your limbs yet to realize, we are stationary, that you can soon escape your seat and enter through the kissing gate.

The bird you never saw gone, its iridescence a failing flare in the meadow. Right. We are about to make our way inside a wood parked at its entrance. This doesn't it make nature sound a bit like a theme park, a bit like organized entertainment. We're about to make our way inside a wood parked at its entrance. So what we know about this is the speaker is still parked, okay, whereas the other characters in this poem, the pheasant and the child are both moving and very full of energy. But we are parked outside this wood, parked at its entrance. Yet I let the engine tick a little longer. So the speaker here is trying to extend this moment. Maybe, maybe keep the child in the car a bit longer, hold on to the child a bit longer, or maybe just having, if we assume that the speaker is a

poet, I'm not saying it's necessarily Rebecca Goss, but you know, it's the lines are blurred. Just savoring that moment, just thinking about what happened, the child in the backseat, the pheasant in the rear view mirror. Some sort of something is significant about this. This encounter holding a small significance. I think the significance might be, as I say, about free-form nature, about how swift and beautiful it is, both in a bird or in a child, and it just brings a pause for thought. It's almost explaining this section that I let the engine tick a little longer this encounter holding a small significance.

It's almost explaining why this poem is. I saw this and it touched something in me and it made me think of something. That juxtaposition of my bobbing child on the back seat and this scurrying pheasant, both enclosed in the rear-view mirror just for a second, has told me in my poet's heart that this is significant. This stanza ends, your limbs yet to realize, so obviously it it goes on into the next stanza but I just want to say your limbs yet to realize. We've just heard the adult in this say I let the ancient tick a little longer this encounter holding a small significance thinking, thinking it through. Meanwhile the child your limbs yet to realize the child is so

instinctive it she seems to think with her body and there's the the contrast I think of the adult mind and the child's mind. Next stanza. Your limbs yet to realize we are stationary so the kid hasn't yet worked out that the car has stopped. That you can soon escape your seat and enter through the kissing gate. Now that thing I said earlier, I let the engine tick a little longer, is she just trying to keep the child in the car a bit longer. We've seen the exciting movement and the flash of energy from the bird and from a bobbing child in the back seat.

My child, can I just say, is 13 years old. And when a kid gets to about that age, you start thinking about them moving on, about them leaving you behind, about you no longer being the center of their universe. I feel that is what's happening in this poem. We are stationary, so we are still parked, this moving bobbing child, and your limbs are yet to realize we are stationary, that you can soon escape your seat, that use of that word escape, escape your seat and enter through the kissing gate. Now a kissing gate, you'll know, that use of that word escape, escape your seat and enter through the kissing gate. Now a kissing gate you'll know is one of those gates that you have to go through and then close

for the next person to go through. It's a separating kind of a gate. Two people really can't go through it together. It's about separation even though it's a kissing gate. So there's love and the separation in a kissing gate and I think it also sounds like an entrance to an exciting more grown-up world if you like where kissing is a bit more than a loving peck on a cheek from a parent or elderly relative. So she can escape her seat and enter through the kissing gate. Separation and love they seem to me to be two big themes in this poem. I'm gonna give you again this stanza.

We are stationary that you can soon escape your seat and enter through the kissing gate. The bird you never saw gone. It's iridescence, a failing flare in the meadow. So there seems to be a bit of energy left, but the bird has gone. That natural energy again, it's iridescence, a failing flare, we're slightly post the flash, if you like, the bird you never saw gone, the child has no knowledge of that pheasant in the rear-view mirror, it's the parents view that we're getting. We're getting her pain, her potential loss of closeness to this child. We're getting her analysis, her poetry. The child's poetry, as I say, is more instinctive, more natural. I think letting go, there must be some pain and anxiety from the

child but most of the pain of letting go of a child growing I think falls upon the parent. I hope I'm putting not too much of myself in this but I feel and I said before on these poetry podcasts that a poem is about meeting a poet somewhere between you and the page. You have to bring some of yourself to it. I'll try not to overdo that. This Friday, may I speak freely? I prefer English.

The naked gun is the most fun you can have in theaters. Yeah, let's go! Without getting arrested. Is he serious? Is he serious? No. The Naked Gun. Only in theatres. Friday. Okay. The next bit.

The click of a car seat on Bockling. You have made your decision to leave this space. Because inside the car with your mother, you won't see brimstone butterflies, the seasonal ponds, the coppiced limes determined stretch towards light. Mm. The click of a car seat on Bocklin, this is the beginning of Stanza four.

That click, I think, feels like an awakening because seeing that bird has sent the speaker into a lot of deep thoughts. This encounter holding a small significance. So the parent, I think, is thinking, the bird you never saw gone, it's iridescent, a failing flair in the meadow, still thinking of the child and the bird and what the significance is of that juxtaposition, when suddenly a click, it's the car seat on Bockeling.

And obviously that is a symbol of escape. She's freed the child, she's unleashed. And a seatbelt again, like the rear-view mirror, is all about caution and safety and the child is shrugging it off. You have made your decision to leave this space because inside the car with your mother you won't see and then we get a list of what you won't see. That has to be about growing up doesn't it? You have made your decision to leave this space. The car yes, but also the protection of the parent, the parent being the most important thing in your life because inside the car with your mother You won't see and here's the list

brimstone butterflies the seasonal ponds and I think most significant third on this list the coppice limes Determine stretch towards light. Now, clearly on one level, the child doesn't want to stay in the car with the mother. She wants to get into the wood and see brimstone, butterflies, the seasonal ponds. But coppist limes. To coppist a tree, it's a sort of foresting method and it means to cut down a tree and to not let

it grow. I think it is the trees are pruned and cut down to keep them juvenile and they are kept within the coppice and that's what they do with them. And the coppice lime, so this is a tree that's not been allowed to grow up, the coppice limes determine stretch towards light. Well, it has to be, doesn't it? It has to be the child reaching for independence and freedom. Okay, I'm turning the page. That's what that sound is. So she's looking at this child now leaving the car. It's hard to understand that you ever step on pavements as you skip beyond the gate's kind admission into a realm that knows my wish to stay within its hold. Right, I jump-stands us there, but we're not going to fall out about that.

It's hard to understand that you ever step on pavements. This child seems so natural, so free. The idea of on a man-made pavement or maybe even in a rear-view mirror or in a car or buckled into a seat, none of that seems right for this child of nature. As I'm going to say, her mother, it has to be her mother, watches her skip out of the car. It's hard to understand that you ever step on pavements as you skip beyond the gate's kind admission. I'm saying it's kind because it's a kissing gate. So the gate's kind admission. So the kiss here is a sort of,

it's an entrance into the wood, but it feels like an exit as well, doesn't it? It feels like a moving away from the parental support. The gate's kind admission into a realm that knows. Now that's where the stanza ends. So then we're going to get a list of what this realm knows. Now that's where the stanza ends and then we're going to get a list of what this realm knows. It sounds like the wood knows something here. The wood, it seems to be speaking about the wisdom of nature, the wisdom of trees. I know I'm getting slightly supernatural here but that's what I think is going on. So what does

this realm, this wood, what does it know? Last answer. My wish to stay within its hold. So the wood knows that you want to be inside the gate so that your child has to remain with you if you like so you'll be together so the realm seems to understand that the very trees themselves what else does the realm see sees your hair lit by what can filter from above. Now that, surely that reminds us of those coppice limes, determined stretch towards light. They're trying to grow upward, upward towards the light, but the forest people are cutting them down and pruning them. They're being prevented from growing towards the light. So, seize your hair lit by what can filter from above.

This is what the trees seem to see. Seize your hair lit by what can filter from above. That's the sun that comes through the trees. Sometimes it's shade, sometimes it's sun. Your body appearing and vanishing in succession. A bird sighted, thrilled at, then flown. So then a final comparison with that pheasant in the rear view mirror. Appearing and disappearing, this time because of the sun coming through the trees in the wood.

This child is visible and then almost invisible. But a bird sighted, thrilled at, then flown. When you become a parent, one thing that more experienced parents delight in telling you is that it all goes much quicker than you expect. And you think, oh yeah, I bet that isn't true. But in fact, you know, you have a baby in your arms and then you have a teenager going to university or to work or whatever. And yes, parents feel that loss. There's an old song which says a man is bequeathing things as he dies and

he's a penniless man so he's leaving natural phenomenon. It's called When I Leave This World Behind and I used to know a guy called Irish Tony who always sang it in the pub. And it said, to the old, oh was it to the old woman, I leave the memory of a baby upon their knee. I think it's something like that. Maybe it's to the mothers I leave a memory of a baby upon their knee. And I don't know if parents ever quite get over the growing up process. And it's something that is often said, but you know Alexander Pope said that great poetry is something that is oft said but ne'er so well expressed. I think Rebecca Goss is talking about that sense of loss, that sense

of your child growing, of moving out of your sphere, but she's saying it beautifully and in a really interesting and moving way. And that's what I love about it. And I love the expression of that conflict that a parent has. The admiration of the freedom and the energy and the independence in their growing child. But this weird desire also to contain it. Like that old, I think it's a Japanese proverb about if a bird lands on your hand, you have to risk that it will fly away because if you try and hold on to it it will die. Okay I'm gonna do another Rebecca Goss

poem because because I really like Rebecca Goss' poetry. What? No good a reason do you need? And also I think this is a bit of a first. My memory isn't what it was, but I'm not sure I've ever done on these poetry podcasts that which is called a prose poem. And a prose poem, in case you don't know, just looks like a paragraph on a page, but it is called a poem. It does not have line breaks and stanzas, so that is something that is missing from it, but it does have rhythms and metaphors and wordplay and all those things you'd expect to be in a poem. Some people are a bit sniffy about prose poems.

I just like anything that's good and this is good. This is another poem from Latch, that 2023 collection from Rebecca Goss. I'll try not to keep you too long, but I think you'll like it. It's called Sylvia. And here it goes. There'll be no talk of line breaks in this. I'm already missing it. As I say, it's called Sylvia. A farm on the outskirts stores a pool where the water looks greenish, and Sylvia, half submerged, takes my daughter by the scruff of her costume, arm floats cast off, slices her through water. The format irregular, yet generations of a town have learnt this way. Soon my daughters dive with eager grace the splashless vanish of her pencil jump.

Ah, the splashless vanish of her pencil jump as a description of a really good dive into the water is that straightness of the body and the fact there's almost no splash. The splashless vanish of a pencil jump just disappearing barely seeming to trouble the surface of the water. Anyway I go before my horse to mark it as I think Richard the Third said in Act 1 of Shakespeare's, you've guessed it, Richard III. A farm on the outskirts stores a pool where the water looks greenish. Sounds very hidden and obscure, doesn't it?

Farm on the outskirts, stores are pools, as if it's hidden away, where the water looks greenish. Okay, you're already thinking, do I want my child swimming in there? But, I think we do. And Sylvia, half submerged, takes my daughter by the scruff of her costume. So, we know that we're at the pool.

Sylvia, half submerged. So, not swimming it seems, probably standing. I think also you're already getting an idea that Sylvia is not known, not fully known. That use of half submerged reminds me, rightly or wrongly, of that Wordsworth poem, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways, which you probably know if you listen to this podcast regularly, it's one of my favorites. And it describes Lucy, this woman who lives in a rural area, as a violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye. So someone who lives in, I suppose, what the newspapers would call semi-obscurity.

Not a phrase I like very much. So Sylvia, half submerged, takes my daughter by the scruff of her costume. She sounds as if she's sort of, like she's rough and no nonsense. Takes her by the scruff of her costume, arm floats cast off. So she wasn't having any of that.

The child had arm floats on. And that reminds me, actually, of the previous poem we talked about. Arm floats cast off is like the unboggling, isn't it, of the seatbelt. It's like the child being out free and skipping around rather than being seen in the rear view mirror. It's a sign of courage, independence, freedom.

So Sylvia, half submerged, takes my daughter by the scruff of her costume, arm floats, cast off, slices her through water. Again, quite rough, but caring rough. The format irregular sort of suggests that this woman has her own way of teaching kids. Yet generations of a town have learnt this way. So it seems that Sylvia has been doing this for a long time. Soon my daughters dive with eager grace. That fabulous combination of childlike excitement and enthusiasm

and someone who has been taught something. Eager grace. and enthusiasm and someone who has been taught something. Eager grace, energy, but also style. Soon my daughters dive with eager grace, the splashless vanish of a pencil jump. Stunning, absolutely stunning. I would call that the beauty of the learnt, if I may say that.

Okay, I'm just carrying on now with the prose. There's no new paragraph. The time we drove Sylvia home, single track road and her chatter, fields listening. I love the economy of this. It's just the bare minimum of what you need for the story. It's like a telegram. The time we drove Sylvia home. Single track road and her chatter. So those are the two things she remembers from that journey. Single track road, as you will know if you've driven in the countryside,

very common, and her chatter. Fields listening. Does that mean that the speaker stopped listening after a bit? I don't know. But fields listening. She came to Suffolk at night. So we're going to get a bit of the story of Sylvia here. Can I just point out that the time we drove Sylvia home, that sounds doesn't it like it only happened once.

So it sounds to me like Sylvia keeps herself to herself most of the time. Let's carry on. Single track road in her chat of fields listening. She came to Suffolk at night, stepped onto the bus with her mother. From Peckham to this one town, decades pending in its sky, found Mrs Norman housing mothers in the aftershock of war. So the time we drove Sylvia home, that to me sounds like a one-off, or you wouldn't say it like that. Single track road and a chatter. That was, I'm trying to focus on a single track road, people coming the other way,

potholes etc, wildlife and her chatter. This was a chance for Sylvia, maybe a person who didn't get that much chance to chatter to people, to tell a tale. Single track road in a chat of fields listening, as I say, maybe the speaker wasn't. She came to Suffolk at night, stepped onto the bus with her mother. So when she was a child, presumably she came to Suffolk from Peckham to this one town. That sounds like she stayed here. This is not a woman

who's moved about and explored. She sounds, one could think, a bit dull for doing that. But stick around. Decades pending in its sky. So from Peckham to this one town decades pending in its sky. She was going to stay here for decades pending. They're waiting for her. This town seems to be waiting for her to live there. Found Mrs Norman housing mothers in the aftershock of war. So clearly this is a post-war arrival from Peckham to Suffolk which makes Sylvia quite old when she's teaching the child it seems. Phone Mrs Norman housing mothers in the aftershock of war. Okay, so this is a woman who left London, left the big city when she was a child, came to this rural town and stayed in this one town Decades, decades. So could it be that this is a prose poem? Because Sylvia is what one might call a prose person.

A non-spectacular person, like we pass in the street every day as one would go past the spectres on a ghost train without really wondering what their inner life is all about. Anyway, her story of arriving at Mrs. Norman's house for mothers continues. Mrs. Norman's half-dozen children of her own stood in nightgowns. So Mrs Norman has got six kids, they all come out in nightgowns to see the new arrival.

White is cotton falling from chin to toe. Now that must be a description being given by Sylvia, that sounds like she's come from poverty, doesn't it? And she's so impressed by these nightgowns. Whitest cotton falling from chin to toe, and Sylvia thought that she had died, thought she'd got to heaven. Six angels there to greet her. And this is the point I was kind of make about someone like Sylvia. You might think that she was, she lived the pros life. Do you know what I mean by that? A life, an unspectacular, an unexamined life you might say. But this

this Blakeian image, a sort of thing that William Blake would say, seeing six angels, she realised of course that it was just six children, but that was what she thought. And the way she teaches the children, the way she produces the splashless vanish of her pencil jump, it just gives to show or suggest there's poetry in everyone, isn't that? We put her in a prose poem because that's where she seems to belong, but the poetry keeps bursting out. She thought that she had died, thought she'd got to heaven, six angels there to greet her. And you can imagine that's a story she always tells when she gets a chance to tell it, but

it is beautiful. It's almost like six angels combined with that decades pending in the town sky that it was meant to be Sylvia arriving here that she was fated to teach the children how to swim. Arm floats, cast off. Right, the last two sentences. We stop at the bungalow. That suddenly brings mundanity, reality into the poem after the six angels. We stop at the bungalow, I carry her things to the door. Drive home, bloom of her damp outline on the seat. What a last sentence that is. Drive home, bloom of her damp outline on the seat.

She leaves an impression, I mean an actual physical impression. She's damp because she's been teaching these kids to swim and I don't know maybe she's got a Cosy on underneath or she hasn't dried properly, but she has left an image behind this ordinary woman, this prose woman has left a sort of touring shroud like imprint on the speaker's seat and it remains, it does, it leaves an impression on the seat but it clearly leaves an impression on the speaker as well. That drive home, that story that Sylvia told. And like I say I think it's a prose poem because we all think of people like Sylvia who we see knocking around as prose people but clearly she contains poetry and it is expressed beautifully I think in this poem Sylvia

that's Rebecca Goss I would recommend Latch I mean and her other collections but Latch I think has got so much in It is rich and you can't have enough of that in your life. So thank you for listening to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast. Don't forget to follow so you never miss an episode. Imagine that. See you next week.