Scribbler's Salon Poetry Review

By Mary E. Ringland

Portrait of My Father as a Snail

By Kelly Davis

Portrait of My Father as a Snail (Palewell Press, 2026) is the second solo collection by the gifted Cumbrian-based poet Kelly Davis. Having previously enjoyed her debut collection (The Lost Art of Ironing, Hedgehog Press, 2024), I knew I was in for a treat, and this little gem didn’t disappoint.

Once again, Davis uses concise language and close attention to detail to unpick the complexities of a daughter’s relationship with her reclusive father. The reader is guided through a body of free-verse poems that are unbiased and informative, yet never dispassionate; each one brimming with insight and empathy in the search for the individual beneath the shell. Not only do we have a brave and intimate exploration of deep familial connection in all its multi-layered complexity. Davis also provides us with a psychological study of the broader human condition: how our unmet needs, fears, and unfulfilled dreams shape who we become, and, in turn, how that impacts relationships as we navigate our way through life.

The collection opens with the poem, ‘For I will consider my aged father’, consisting of ten unrhymed couplets of no fixed meter. Here, the rhythm mimics the natural, deliberate pace of an observer, often investigative in nature. We are presented with a list of her father’s personality traits; a snapshot of the quirks and foibles associated with daily life: “For he listens to the weather forecast four times a day/although he rarely leaves the house”. Each couplet continues in a repetitive, meditative tone – “For he likes…”, “For he spends…” – building a character profile that leaves the reader itching to discover more.

As we travel through this expertly crafted collection, the tone fluctuates as Davis alternates how she addresses her father. For example, the term ‘Father’ is employed in poems that objectively inform, such as ‘A psychiatrist assesses my father, aged seven’: “X presents as an intelligent, lively boy/but very anxious, with feelings of persecution”. In contrast, the term ‘Dad’ is preferred in more affectionate poems, such as ‘Song of Dad’s spine’: “Dad’s backbone held him/prisoner for twenty years,” and ‘Dear Dad’: “I picture you levering yourself out of bed,/hair a little thinner, back a little more hunched.”

Though the layout isn’t strictly sequential, we are left with a definite sense of a beginning, a middle, and an end as Davis guides us through significant episodes and pivotal points in the evolution of a father-daughter relationship. None of the poems in this collection is superfluous to the narrative; each one is an essential element in the revelation of character. One poem that stopped me in my tracks was ‘The giving of gifts’, a heartbreaking glimpse of how her father and their relationship declined as the years progressed: “And gifts became a joyless transaction/– me sending him a book token, him sending me a cheque. Now/his tremor has turned his signature into a faint squiggle – but the/bank still accepts it”. We are also given insight into her aged father’s reclusive nature in ‘Portrait of my father as an old man’: “These days you hardly dare/to venture out. Walking is painful,/the world is a scary place/peopled by criminals and terrorists”, and in ‘My father’s house’: “dad first double-locked/the front door over 30 years ago/and nothing’s changed since.”

Later in the collection, the poem ‘In the care home’ focuses on the emotional toll of having a parent in a care home, and the shift that brings about in the parent/child role: “I felt like a mother/sending her son to boarding school, hoping he would make/friends, hoping the teachers would be kind.”

Towards the end of the collection, the reader witnesses the narrator come to understand her father as a person in his own right, by uncovering crucial clues among his belongings, ‘In my father’s study’: “In the drawers…In the Cupboards…On his desk”, and in ‘A Bag of voices’: “I opened a bag of voices/…Letters from women who loved my father,/…The one who wrote the most letters/furiously told him he was like/a crushed snail.”

There are many stand-out poems in this collection, too many for me to explore in this short review. But what stood out for me is a shared love of poetry, an essential continuing thread in the quest for understanding, and its power to overcome disconnection. Davis hints at this in ‘My father’s poems’: “he shows me one he wrote last week,/’Automatons 4’.” and as the penultimate poem suggests, ‘I don’t think I’ll run out of poems’: “Tiny time capsules…/waiting in plastic folders,/I just need to keep reading”.

The collection ends with the poem, ‘Take my Chambered Shell Apart”: “Now it’s empty,/you can look inside,/see the delicate spiral structure,/wonder how it survived”. That’s what this collection does: it takes the delicate shell apart and, in doing so, fosters an understanding of what it means to be human. It provides the reader with an awareness of the universal human condition, explored through the personal experience of a father-daughter relationship – an unbreakable family bond that transcends everyday experience. It also encourages us to take a step back from close family ties, consider the uniqueness of each individual, and not just focus on our subjective experience of them.

Kelly Davis has her own unique style, born out of a deep connection to the world around her, and an even deeper compassion for the people in it. These poems will appeal to lovers of heartfelt poetry who appreciate clarity and precision in language; they will linger in your soul for a very long time.

More information about Kelly Davis and her poetry can be found at: www.kellydavis.co.uk