Portrait in Mustard – Wendy Allen

Wendy Allen’s Portrait in Mustard celebrates sex and pleasure, whilst registering the risks of intimacy for straight women in a world where men’s pleasure often comes first. This collection is alive with references to the arts and fashion. The sensuality of the poems riffs off Barbara Hepworth’s sculptures, Jean Rhys’s fiction, and Anais Nin’s erotica, but there are also poems inspired by Des’ree, the West Side Story song ‘America’, a Mulberry handbag, and Richard Curtis movies. Via the unabashed tones of mustard yellow and metaphors of fruit and art, Allen’s poems create a manifesto for women’s independence, autonomy and joy. These are explicit, honest poems which embrace sex as an integral part of relationships and love.