A saving bannister

'Across the abyss a bannister goes, a raining on a ledge over sullen darkness, leading its intermediaries to stairs up and down, rooms that begin and do not end, halls of light ( but rarely glory), alcoves peopled by rain spiders and slow breathing.' So begins Wendy Woodward's third volume of poetry , a journey into vulnerability and grace, across terrains inhabited by dogs, minotaurs and leviathans, by puppets and a failed Icarus. Stories are teased from the ears of donkeys and the pit-pits of an oyster catcher, from a cupboard in the Amatholas to a monastery in Sikkim - all held behind the saving bannister of her poetry.