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Absence has a Weight of its Own
The debut collection of Daniel Sluman's poetic works.
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2012
16 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Sluman
7 books18 followersDaniel Sluman is a 34 year old writer and editor with a BA and MA in Creative Writing from University of Gloucestershire. His work explores disability through a mainly confessionalist mode, and his debut collection 'Absence has a weight of its own' was published by Nine Arches Press in 2012. In 2015 his second collection 'the terrible' was also published by Nine Arches Press and he won AHRC funding for a PHD in Disability Poetics at Birmingham City University. He co-edited the poetry anthology 'Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back' with Khairani Barokka and Sandra Alland in 2017. His third collection of poetry, 'single window' was published in September 2021 through Nine Arches Press.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 26, 2014
To see my video review, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7fD...
Otherwise the script can be read below.
So here it finally is, I made two videos to couch this, eventual, one. The first considered poetry through the categorisations of genre, both in relation to young adult readers and thus in relation to popular and literary reading. The second was a mini theory lecture and talked about reading poetry with regards to meanings and interpretations. If you haven’t yet already watched both of those I highly recommend doing so, they should hopefully give some context to this, most treturous of tasks, the reviewing of a book of poems.
My initial reaction upon receiving Absence has a Weight of its Own was not altogether the most rapturous of receptions. The tacky, inexplicably-out-sized pamphlet that slipped from the envelope I’d received put me in mind of some sunday-school sampler, adorned as it was with alpha, omega, and ...other insignia. And I don’t understand how the dull grey scrunch of its cover could lead readers to expect anything but a dull, grey scrunch of an interior.
Sometimes I am so glad that reviewing foists feasts upon me I wouldn’t have otherwise deigned to dine upon.
I loved this book, obviously some poems more than others, but generally I found each piece I sat before, to speak of brilliant, highly complex, highly relevant things. They’re modern compositions, very few of which utilise rhyme or rhythm in any traditional sense. Some pieces particularly play with the placement of words on the page, although they never go far as to play with text size or font, which is a shame because it’s something I’d a particular fan of.
There are a number of key themes explored: illness, sex, love, death, life and all the ways in which we imagine it. As I was saying in my last video, the poems in this book use language in such a way that these poems must mean different things to different people. They suggest things slightly, they use punned upon, unusual adjectives, in discourses foreign to them. As I read this book originally - upon receiving it, and then reread it months later, in preparation for this review - I realised what a different person I was, from month to month, from second to second, finding different readings in these lyrics each time I approached them.
A lot of the reviews quoted on the back of the physical book make reference to the poems featuring a character called Roman; a dark, confused figure, broken and breaking, he is choking on some evil blackness, and what relationships you see him featured within are all highly problematic. His poems while interesting enough, were not, I thought, the primary thrust of this collection though. I felt reviewers insistence of referencing them, was just lazy; they give an easy way to talk about a group of poems because they’re joined in a low level of language, all considering the supposed, same character.
It was other refrains that caught in the melody of my thoughts, those personal to my dealings and interests. Particularly those that consider women, and gender imagined, like Other, which pictures a rain-soaked waif on a balcony, as ‘the pin this city heaves upon’, and, joy upon joy, the countless pieces that imagined people and lives in literature, letters and the liltingly lexical. Love Song to a Notebook has the speaker ‘plane’ their week into ‘neat couplets; the stanza’s breath’, Portrait at a Cafe watches a woman ‘kill her life’ by turning it into text’: ‘her hands/ Private suicides/ stiffening life into FINISH QUOTE
Despite liking this book though, one thought I couldn’t shake was a questioning of whether this is the right format for such content? I know from my years working in bookshops that poetry, and new poets especially, doesn’t sell amazingly well, considering the physical book these verses were contained within, I wasn’t impressed. I wonder, wouldn’t poems now fit better into some online form such as tumblr? Mightn’t they be read and shared a lot more freely and widely there? I would wholeheartedly support such a stance, if it wasn’t for the legitimisation of publishing. Published books are seen to have jumped through some arbitrary hope, to have proved their worth, in making it through an agent, or editor, or printing press. I read this book seriously and awarding it literary merit, because it came to me in the form of a book. I’m not sure, if someone linked me to a website, if I would have afforded it that same respect, and got as much out of it.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you think poetry still belongs in books, or would it work better online? And what do you think of the sound of Absence has a Weight of it’s Own.
See you in my next video. Bye guys!
Otherwise the script can be read below.
So here it finally is, I made two videos to couch this, eventual, one. The first considered poetry through the categorisations of genre, both in relation to young adult readers and thus in relation to popular and literary reading. The second was a mini theory lecture and talked about reading poetry with regards to meanings and interpretations. If you haven’t yet already watched both of those I highly recommend doing so, they should hopefully give some context to this, most treturous of tasks, the reviewing of a book of poems.
My initial reaction upon receiving Absence has a Weight of its Own was not altogether the most rapturous of receptions. The tacky, inexplicably-out-sized pamphlet that slipped from the envelope I’d received put me in mind of some sunday-school sampler, adorned as it was with alpha, omega, and ...other insignia. And I don’t understand how the dull grey scrunch of its cover could lead readers to expect anything but a dull, grey scrunch of an interior.
Sometimes I am so glad that reviewing foists feasts upon me I wouldn’t have otherwise deigned to dine upon.
I loved this book, obviously some poems more than others, but generally I found each piece I sat before, to speak of brilliant, highly complex, highly relevant things. They’re modern compositions, very few of which utilise rhyme or rhythm in any traditional sense. Some pieces particularly play with the placement of words on the page, although they never go far as to play with text size or font, which is a shame because it’s something I’d a particular fan of.
There are a number of key themes explored: illness, sex, love, death, life and all the ways in which we imagine it. As I was saying in my last video, the poems in this book use language in such a way that these poems must mean different things to different people. They suggest things slightly, they use punned upon, unusual adjectives, in discourses foreign to them. As I read this book originally - upon receiving it, and then reread it months later, in preparation for this review - I realised what a different person I was, from month to month, from second to second, finding different readings in these lyrics each time I approached them.
A lot of the reviews quoted on the back of the physical book make reference to the poems featuring a character called Roman; a dark, confused figure, broken and breaking, he is choking on some evil blackness, and what relationships you see him featured within are all highly problematic. His poems while interesting enough, were not, I thought, the primary thrust of this collection though. I felt reviewers insistence of referencing them, was just lazy; they give an easy way to talk about a group of poems because they’re joined in a low level of language, all considering the supposed, same character.
It was other refrains that caught in the melody of my thoughts, those personal to my dealings and interests. Particularly those that consider women, and gender imagined, like Other, which pictures a rain-soaked waif on a balcony, as ‘the pin this city heaves upon’, and, joy upon joy, the countless pieces that imagined people and lives in literature, letters and the liltingly lexical. Love Song to a Notebook has the speaker ‘plane’ their week into ‘neat couplets; the stanza’s breath’, Portrait at a Cafe watches a woman ‘kill her life’ by turning it into text’: ‘her hands/ Private suicides/ stiffening life into FINISH QUOTE
Despite liking this book though, one thought I couldn’t shake was a questioning of whether this is the right format for such content? I know from my years working in bookshops that poetry, and new poets especially, doesn’t sell amazingly well, considering the physical book these verses were contained within, I wasn’t impressed. I wonder, wouldn’t poems now fit better into some online form such as tumblr? Mightn’t they be read and shared a lot more freely and widely there? I would wholeheartedly support such a stance, if it wasn’t for the legitimisation of publishing. Published books are seen to have jumped through some arbitrary hope, to have proved their worth, in making it through an agent, or editor, or printing press. I read this book seriously and awarding it literary merit, because it came to me in the form of a book. I’m not sure, if someone linked me to a website, if I would have afforded it that same respect, and got as much out of it.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you think poetry still belongs in books, or would it work better online? And what do you think of the sound of Absence has a Weight of it’s Own.
See you in my next video. Bye guys!
August 3, 2022
A beautiful debut collection, both tender and brutal, exploring absence and the bodily weight of being and belonging and wanting.
May 8, 2016
An excellent collection of poems.
December 7, 2016
An outstanding collection exploring the often darker side of humanity. An enjoyable and thought provoking read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews