Where Do Wishes Go?

This is Debra Bertulis’s first collection of children’s poems, some of which have already appeared in anthologies. For the most part these are not poems that describe the physical world, use striking images, or make unexpected connections to encourage us to see our surroundings anew. Rather, Bertulis is most interested in exploring people and relationships, which she does in an enviably spare and straightforward way, finding an approach, often with a gentle humour, that subtly evokes a response in the reader. In Grandad’s Leaving Home, for instance, the narrator wonders what Grandad might need when he goes to heaven and the poem’s enquiries tell us a great deal, not only about Grandad’s own personality, but about the love and concern of the worrying grandchild. Sometimes Bertulis leaves something to the reader. What are we to make of Lily, who lives with her grandma, but says her parents live in Hollywood, or of the narrator, her friend, who says, ‘I’ve never seen Lily’s mansion, / Or her dad’s luxury jet, /Sometimes I think I’ll ask to, / But then, I just forget.’ My own favourite is Blackberry Picking, which reminds me of my childhood and Sunday family outings for the filling for pies and the making of jam. I too remember the challenge and pleasure of searching between nettles and brambles to reach the most difficult fruit: ‘For those which prove the hardest to grasp/ Are the sweetest tasting by far.’