After the Rites and Sandwiches: Poems

by Kathy Pimlott

Centred on a sudden accidental death – its shocking actuality, the aftermath, the admin – Kathy Pimlott’s third pamphlet is an honest, lyrical and nuanced journey through the complexity of bereavement.

As the world around her continues on – moths remain attracted to lights, Christmas comes and goes – Pimlott lives with the irreplaceable absence that follows the loss of a partner. Amid the pain and emotion is a streak of wry humour at the mundanity of settling affairs and a powerfully personal trajectory of moving through grief rather than moving on.

Across poems that take stock of the things people leave behind and the sometimes-painful memories of a long and textured marriage, After the Rites and Sandwiches tracks the rollercoaster of grief, guilt and regret without losing sight of the enduring salve of love.

Genres: Poetry

36 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2024

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 18 poems in this pamphlet (in America it would be called a chapbook) orbit the sudden death of Pimlott’s husband a few years ago. By the time she found Robert at the bottom of the stairs, there was nothing paramedics could do. What next? The callousness of bureaucracy: “Your demise constitutes a quarter off council tax; / the removal of a vote you seldom cast and then / only to be contrary; write-off of a modest overdraft; / the bill for an overpaid pension” (from “Death Admin I”). Attempts at healthy routines: “I’ve written my menu for the week. Today’s chowder. / I manage ten pieces of the 1000-piece jigsaw’s scenes / from Jane Austen. Tomorrow I’ll visit friends and say // it’s alright, it’s alright, seventy, eighty percent / alright” (from “How to be a widow”). Pimlott casts an eye over the possessions he left behind, remembering him in gardens and on Sunday walks of the sort they took together. Grief narratives can err towards bitter or mawkish, but this one never does. Everyday detail, enjambment and sprightly vocabulary lend the wry poems a matter-of-fact grace. I plan to pass on my copy to a new book club member who was widowed unexpectedly in May – no doubt she’ll recognise the practical challenges and emotional reality depicted.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Amolhavoc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly skewers the complexity and mundanity of grief. The poems have been going round in my head since I finished reading them, and I think they will stay with me for a long time. Would deserve five stars even if the poet wasn't my friend's mum.

[Jenny Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these poems give a really poignant image of grief in the small things that I found deeply relatable. I particularly loved 'There isn't a ghost' and 'Interior Décor'. Some of the poems I found a bit more obtuse and difficult to understand, but sometimes that's just how poetry books are, and the ones I liked I really liked.