In Berlin Lines, Penny Hope’s fine pamphlet published by Tears in the Fence, an observer recounts their perceptions and experiences of the city’s history, language and environment. Throughout the poems runs the theme of reflections – reflections in the sense of pondering and thinking but also with the meaning of vibrations and echoes, the resonances of the past.
The evocative cover image, ‘Reflections in the Spree’, is taken from a photograph by the author. This significant river, seen in the context of the city’s present environment and its history at the time of the Cold War, is one of contrasts. The ‘slow drift of dark water’ may be beautiful with its ‘trail of rippling light’ that is ‘dissolving in reflection’, it may be ‘a busker’s water-music’ and a source of purification, but it is also like a polluted soup, thick with sulphates, pesticides, ‘detergents residues of oil cigarette butts bicycles’. (‘Museum Island’). Overshadowing all this is the memory of the Spree during the time of the Berlin Wall when it was part of a natural but heavily fortified border, a dangerous escape route where several children drowned, a barrier that was both physical and ideological.
A striking feature of Berlin Lines is the way different poetic forms are used to capture diverse aspects of the city and beyond. Several poems feel fragmentary and notelike, a form that suits images of ‘maps// diaries, letters/blown about’. (‘City Notes’). Throughout, there is skilful use of white space, a poem may be punctuated or not (‘Treptow’), several poems are written in a minimalist, short-stanza style (‘Stones’. ‘Palace of Tears’), others are lyrical and expansive. (‘Trail’. ‘Bridges’). Among my personal favourites is the prose poem sequence ‘Bridges’. Other favourites are the longer prose poems that are set out in blocks, especially the surreal poem ‘In the Square’. Here the author imagines herself climbing into a carving of a gigantic ‘Great Ear’ where she passes through a tunnel ‘lit dimly by overhead lights’ until she reaches the membrane of the tympanum whose ‘meshed quality reminded her of a textured curtain pulled taut, or the screen of a confessional… Here, in this inner sanctum, she would make herself as comfortable as she could, as she prepared to tell what she needed to tell.’
This last sentence about needing to tell brings to mind the question of language. In many of the poems there is a fascinating, seamless interplay between English and German. Phrases in both languages flow like the river, the use of German gives the English reader the feel of being in a foreign city. Notes at the back of the pamphlet are helpful for those who need them for translations and references. In the richness of this multi-lingualism, words may be forbidden, kept secret or spoken aloud ‘in a nostalgia/of naming’. (‘Trail’). ‘We must speak our stories when we can’ say the women in ‘Circle’ referring to the need to ‘shake up our languages, speaking in turn, around the table in our own and other-mother-tongues’.
Words may be ambiguous, loaded with double meanings. But they may also be used in fun, to be relished for their sounds and complexities. Berlin Lines is full of examples of alliteration, and the Text Tile ‘Urban Weave’ can be enjoyed for its clever blending of image and anagram.
One more inspiring feature of language is Hope’s use of quotations. Biblical quotations in German add lyricism and symbolism to ‘Museum Island’ and German writers such as Brecht, Goethe and Hölderlin add their energy to new contexts such as in the poem ‘Waldbühne’ where the international concert brings harmony like ‘a swoop of great wings’. ‘Who would wish to laugh alone, cry alone?’ asks Goethe.
Mandy Pannett 11th January 2026
