★★★
McGeown finds herself in a beautiful intimate room, a wood-panelled bunker with soft red-lighting reminiscent of Twin Peaks. An apt reference as the following hour of poetry weaves many filmic moments from The Fly, Carrie, The Shining and many more with intricate dissections of what it’s like to be an autistic woman negotiating with the world.
McGeown is a charismatic performer, she inhabits her words, and the rhythms of her sentences play like a harmony. The scope of her subjects and the intensity of each idea is placed upon each other without a moments silence.
There isn’t a bad poem in the hour-long show, but there is a lot to unpack, and McGeown doesn’t leave a space for her audience to digest. There isn’t any context to each poem, rather the context reveals itself during each recitation.
Moments that struck strongest, were the descriptions of stims and being a child again, it was so vivid, almost transporting.
Whilst McGeown is an excellent poet and her live performance well-worth experiencing, it can be a dense collection that has no let up, and sometimes that can undermine and overwhelm. We look forward to McGeown’s next collection as her poetry has an essential quality, especially from a neurodivergent perspective.
Elizabeth McGeown: Cockroach is on at Whistlebinkies until the 12th August.
