Review of ‘Step into the Dark’ by Julie Stevens

I had heard and enjoyed Julie Stevens read her poetry on a number of occasions on the Zoom circuit, so I was looking forward to the publication of her pamphlet, Step into the Dark  (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2023). This autobiographical work shares her daily experience of living with multiple sclerosis and though these frank and courageous poems make at times an uncomfortable and distressing read, like all good literature they provide us with a powerful insight into experience and prompt us to reflect upon wider issues.

Stevens’ poems make real the physical and psychological impact of this debilitating illness. She describes how her life has been radically transformed: ‘I used to catch the wind/ and sail with every moment I could hold,/ but now I sit stale,/ waiting for days to ignite.’ The words ‘stale’ and ‘wait’ say it all: she has lost any sense of agency in her own life. As the title of this poem says she is Stuck Inside. Having been a former runner and dancer her ‘route to fulfilment remains blocked/ Coned off’. There is a potent grief for this loss running through many of the poems and nowhere more powerfully than in Future Tides as she reflects upon where her life is leading: ‘A girl who could once romp over uneven ground/ unbalancing stones and still stand firm/ is now here, regarding her past self,/ left now with a grief, that feeds the question,/ what will future tides bring in?’  She has clearly lost the comfort of the certainties of the past. Her future is unknown and the present is consumed with a daily physical struggle in which she has ‘no skeleton to anchor this body/ no firm muscle to strengthen my walk,/ just a bowl of pulp/ festering in a bag of skin.’ The images are disturbing and convey not only the lack of control over the simplest of functions but also make explicit her anger and frustration. In addition to these physical challenges, she must struggle psychologically against forces which seek to define her in terms of her illness. Her poem Remember Me is an appeal to all who know her to see past the disability, to see the person that they know and love. The poem concludes with the assertion: ‘It’s another world I’ve stepped into now,/ one that carries me/ no shopping in sight.//A different tune I’m tapping today,/ steadying my feet/ trying not to fall.//But the me inside/ will, forever be the same./ remember me.’

I think what makes these poems so memorable is the courage and fortitude that permeate them. There is no self-pity here. Yes, there is a frankness about what it is like to suffer MS, but there is also a strength that allows Stevens ultimately to accept the illness (to ‘step into the dark’), to engage with it and not to allow it to defeat here. In U-turn, she describes how she has her bad days but in the final verse she demonstrates a resolve not to allow such days to destroy her:  ‘I will gather the storms and throw them/ down the river of hurt,/ no callous air will ruin my day.’ In Stand Ready she develops this idea further. She suggests that the inner strength that allows her to do this is in us all. She asks the question: ‘What makes the body hold on,/ be fuelled with a force that knows to stand ready?’ and answers it by saying this strength is innate: ‘I suspect in every day there is a whisper:/ in the silk of young skin,/ a sound nuzzling inside.// If a body stands open, it will know it’s there.’ If we look for it, we can all find the strength within us to face adversity.

It is such reflections that give this highly personal collection a universal significance and a relevance to all readers. Julie Stevens is an emerging talent and I look forward to seeing where her talent will take her.

Julie Stevens writes poems that cover many themes, but often engages with the problems of disability. She is widely published in places such as Ink, Sweat & Tears (Pick of the Month, Oct 2021), Broken Sleep Books, The Honest Ulsterman, Strix, Fly on the Wall Press and Indigo Dreams Publishing. Her winning Stickleback pamphlet, Balancing Act, was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press (June 2021) and he chapbook, Quicksand, by Dreich (Sept 2020). Find out more about Julie’s work at http://www.jumpingjulespoetry.com, where you can also buy a copy of Step into the Dark.