Judy Croome: Author on the Prowl

At times personal and tender, at others philosophical and profound, Groves exhibits a broad range of poetic manoeuvres. Drawing on her varied life – from life in England and Africa, from Anglican priest to Buddhist – Groves delights in employing a medley of various forms to interrogate everyday occurrences; interweaving emptiness and form and back to emptiness again, 

Groves moves from the personal to the collective when considering her topics: family, society, living and loving. “My life too seeks its form” she declares early on, and then proceeds to explore how her fifty+ years of life have shaped and moulded her, leaving spaces in between (“My dad died on the last day of Standard 5”) 

However, as one reads further into the volume, there's an emerging sense that in her particular world there are never any answers, only a continuous, curious exploration. (“Buddhists talk about right speech. I like that. It’s about saying what you need to say. It makes life simpler.”) 

Groves’ pensive and probing poems come together not a linear narrative, but in a haunting consideration of a life that has found its pleasure-in-relating to the myriad experiences of the particular inner and the outer worlds of this woman, both as an individual and as part of a greater society.