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Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow
‘She’s one of the best poets around’ – Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
Part poetry collection, part consolation, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow collects Denise Riley’s moving documents of loss and grief together for the first time.
Rocked by the horrific experience of maternal grief, Denise Riley wrote the much-celebrated Say Something Back, in which the poet-philosopher contemplates the natural world and physical law, and considers what it means to invoke those who are absent. These are poems which expand our sense of human speech and what it can mean, of what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead.
These lyric poems and elegies are accompanied by the beautiful, unflinching Time Lived, Without Its Flow. Diary entries written after receiving news of her adult son’s death are woven into a life portrait of loss. A ruminative post-script to these diaries follows, in which Riley examines the experience with a philosopher’s precision, mapping through it a literature of consolation.
Published in a single volume for the first time, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow offers with remarkable grace and insight kind counsel to all those living in the wake of grief.
Part poetry collection, part consolation, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow collects Denise Riley’s moving documents of loss and grief together for the first time.
Rocked by the horrific experience of maternal grief, Denise Riley wrote the much-celebrated Say Something Back, in which the poet-philosopher contemplates the natural world and physical law, and considers what it means to invoke those who are absent. These are poems which expand our sense of human speech and what it can mean, of what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead.
These lyric poems and elegies are accompanied by the beautiful, unflinching Time Lived, Without Its Flow. Diary entries written after receiving news of her adult son’s death are woven into a life portrait of loss. A ruminative post-script to these diaries follows, in which Riley examines the experience with a philosopher’s precision, mapping through it a literature of consolation.
Published in a single volume for the first time, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow offers with remarkable grace and insight kind counsel to all those living in the wake of grief.
181 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 6, 2025
6 people want to read
About the author
Denise Riley
51 books59 followersDenise Riley (born 1948) is an English poet and philosopher who began to be published in the 1970s.
Her poetry is remarkable for its paradoxical interrogation of selfhood within the lyric mode. Her critical writings on motherhood, women in history, "identity", and philosophy of language, are recognised as an important contribution to feminism and contemporary philosophy. She was Professor of Literature with Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and is currently A.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. She was formerly Writer in Residence at Tate Gallery London, and has held fellowships at Brown University and at Birkbeck, University of London. Among her poetry publications is Penguin Modern Poets 10, with Douglas Oliver and Iain Sinclair (1996). She lives in London.
Her poetry is remarkable for its paradoxical interrogation of selfhood within the lyric mode. Her critical writings on motherhood, women in history, "identity", and philosophy of language, are recognised as an important contribution to feminism and contemporary philosophy. She was Professor of Literature with Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and is currently A.D. White Professor-at-large at Cornell University. She was formerly Writer in Residence at Tate Gallery London, and has held fellowships at Brown University and at Birkbeck, University of London. Among her poetry publications is Penguin Modern Poets 10, with Douglas Oliver and Iain Sinclair (1996). She lives in London.
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