Poetry review: maybe i’ll call gillian anderson by Rhian Elizabeth

Onwy Gower

Rhian Elizabeth won the poetry category in the 2025 Wales Book of the Year awards alongside Nation.Cymru People’s Choice Award. She has also been chosen as one of the Welsh Agenda’s Rising Stars – one of 30 people working to make Wales better over the next 30 years.

‘maybe i’ll call gillian anderson’ depicts the poet’s brutally honest journey through motherhood and loss, grief and love, Wales and Sweden. The entire collection becomes a complete circle as we see Elizabeth’s coming to terms with her daughter moving to her university accomodation and leaving Rhian Elizabeth by herself. With an ache of emptiness we see her delve into her past – finding both fond memories and deep regrets. 

Not only does Rhian Elizabeth revisit her past, she examines these experiences with depth and poise whilst analysing her own actions and how her decisions have impacted her relationships since then. She does this through consistent use of run-on lines which give the impression that the poetry is more of a reflection on her mental state during the evnts that have transpired rather than about the technicalities surrounding poetry typically.

Although the book predominantly focuses on the author’s connection (and loss thereof) with her own daughter, we see her romantic history as well. Beyond the fact that Rhian Elizabeth welcomes us into her memories; she consistently subverts our expectations as to how romance is typically discussed within poetry.

“to this day i blame myself

even though i was not the one

  who pressed the shutter.”

However, this does not mean she looks down upon love. Rhian Elizabeth manages to revisit her past with courageous maturity despite her increasing pessimism as the collection progresses. Although she seemingly accepts the distance from her daughter as seen in the poem ‘the bolter’ – 

“lace them tight, darling –

  you’re finally free to run”

In the next poem, ‘escape artist’ she tenderly reminisces on her adolescent experiences while sleepwalking and compares it to her love. This only flares up when she is not around familiarity, but to her love is always somewhat unfamiliar because, in her own words –

“oh love is the strangest of all places,

  the place where the sleeping dream

  and the dreamers walk”

Separation

Her acknowledgment that she is separated from love to an extent ties back to her new, unfamiliar situation without her daughter. This again draws parallels between her youth and her daughter’s youth which shows how her life within this collection has become close to a circle, unbroken through its characters’ love.

The idea of her life being close to cyclical (as seen through the opening, titular poem rappearing as the closing poem) is pursued in ‘amsterdam’ in which Elizabeth recounts the summer she lost her father and how her memory of that event is intertwined with the summer, “i was flying / downhill on my grandmother’s steep street when / the brakes on my bike went and the world imploded”.

Rhian Elizabeth consistently uses this emphatic language to show her state of mind rather than the true events. This choice allows for a deeper connection between Elizabeth and her readers. Not only does she show her state of mind during these heart-wrenching events, she is remarkably candid about her response which may be relatable to readers who have experienced similar losses.

“i wrapped myself in barbed wire so that no one

would touch me, and if they did and they bled i laughed

 and told them it served them right.

 time softens a person, i think”

Her sudden change in tone can be attributed to the personal growth that is so prevalent throughout the collection. Most of this development is due to her daughter who is, “the only thing / i ever did right” according to the poem ‘mona lisa mona lisa.’

This touching sentiment just about sums up Rhian Elizabeth’s internal conflict between her past mistakes and fear of missing her daughter who changed her for the better by simply being a part of Rhian Elizabeth’s life.

‘maybe i’ll call gillian anderson’ by Rhian Elizabeth is published by Broken Sleep Books. It is available to buy from all good bookshops.