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The Book of Tides
Book of Tides
- GenresPoetryMagical Realism
68 pages, Paperback
Published November 7, 2016
1 person is currently reading
151 people want to read
About the author
Angela Readman
30 books52 followersAngela Readman is a twice shortlisted winner of the Costa Short Story Award. Her stories have won the National Flash Fiction Day Competition, The Mslexia Short Story Prize, and The Fish Short Memoir Prize. They have also been shortlisted in the Manchester Fiction Prize.
Her debut story collection Don't Try This at Home was published by And Other Stories in 2015. It won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She also writes poetry: her poetry collection The Book of Tides was published by Nine Arches in late 2016. Angela's debut novel, Something Like Breathing, will be published by And Other Stories in 2019.
Her debut story collection Don't Try This at Home was published by And Other Stories in 2015. It won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She also writes poetry: her poetry collection The Book of Tides was published by Nine Arches in late 2016. Angela's debut novel, Something Like Breathing, will be published by And Other Stories in 2019.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 22, 2017
I read a lot of poetry. (Like, a LOT, a lot). This is one of the most beautiful collections I've read in ages. Actually, it's one of the most beautiful books I've read in ages, full stop. Mermaids and glitter and fishwives and salt and boats and garden sheds, and utter loveliness. This is going straight onto my all time favourites list. A gorgeous book.
October 19, 2018
I won this book in a competition on Twitter.
I’m not normally a poetry reader but I really enjoyed this collection.
I’m not normally a poetry reader but I really enjoyed this collection.
June 15, 2022
This is one of those poetry collections that I know I’ll want to come back to again and again to study as well as to read for pleasure. Each one is so layered and so clever. I was spellbound throughout.
December 1, 2017
3.5 stars
November 27, 2016
The Book of Tides, by Angela Readman, is a collection of 52 poems featuring a wealth of lyrical imagery conjured from resonant words. The poems explore, among other things, familial and marital relationships – love, loneliness, and the inevitability of loss. Many link to a theme of the sea making the beautiful cover an apt choice.
The complex, emotive push and pull between mothers and daughters crops up in several of the works.
From ‘The Aerialist’s Shopping List’:
“Let me be a disposable tissue, rolling in the wind, carrying my mother’s tears to the gulley.”
From ‘Hallelujah for 50ft Women’:
“Hallelujah to lasses who got too big for their boots, and stepped outside the fitting rooms of their Mother’s eyes.”
In ‘Backendish’ a daughter watches as her mother sews, “the rag bag spilling […] previous lives on the rug”
Fathers are both loved and feared.
In ‘The Tattooist’s Daughter’ a 14 year old girl feels compelled to sacrifice her skin to her father’s art. Although she makes the offering, it feels like abuse.
In ‘The Honey Jar’ a father is remembered following his death:
“I open my mouth and let a viscous rain of things I’d forgotten fall.”
Some of the poems I simply loved whole – ‘Woman and Rat’, ‘Against Youth’, ‘Fiddling the Gas’. Many offered a wry, contemporary humour.
Others were more ethereal with particular lines piercing my emotions.
From ‘The Book of Tides’:
“like starved birds pecking for scraps of heart”
From ‘The Morning of La Llorona’:
“a waterfall, ready to pour whoever I thought I was into your arms”
In ‘Note in a Bottle’ I was drawn to the fragile picture conjured by “the matchstick ship of a more patient man”
There are poems exploring experiences of sex.
From ‘The Herring Lass and the Soap’:
“The school of him slipped over me”
“I can’t get naked without gutting myself”
On lost love I was particularly moved by the sadness of ‘The Sound of a Knot Being Untied’.
From ‘If I Let You Film Me…’
“we’ll see love when we’ve forgotten how it’s done.”
Although affecting there is nothing mawkish about the collection, rather each poem grasps the essence of the situation it evokes. The offerings roll through myths and the cruelties of nature but are grounded in humanity.
Varied and individually noteworthy, I was not surprised to learn that several of the works included have already won awards.
Read slowly and savour. This is a literary feast.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Nine Arches Press.
The complex, emotive push and pull between mothers and daughters crops up in several of the works.
From ‘The Aerialist’s Shopping List’:
“Let me be a disposable tissue, rolling in the wind, carrying my mother’s tears to the gulley.”
From ‘Hallelujah for 50ft Women’:
“Hallelujah to lasses who got too big for their boots, and stepped outside the fitting rooms of their Mother’s eyes.”
In ‘Backendish’ a daughter watches as her mother sews, “the rag bag spilling […] previous lives on the rug”
Fathers are both loved and feared.
In ‘The Tattooist’s Daughter’ a 14 year old girl feels compelled to sacrifice her skin to her father’s art. Although she makes the offering, it feels like abuse.
In ‘The Honey Jar’ a father is remembered following his death:
“I open my mouth and let a viscous rain of things I’d forgotten fall.”
Some of the poems I simply loved whole – ‘Woman and Rat’, ‘Against Youth’, ‘Fiddling the Gas’. Many offered a wry, contemporary humour.
Others were more ethereal with particular lines piercing my emotions.
From ‘The Book of Tides’:
“like starved birds pecking for scraps of heart”
From ‘The Morning of La Llorona’:
“a waterfall, ready to pour whoever I thought I was into your arms”
In ‘Note in a Bottle’ I was drawn to the fragile picture conjured by “the matchstick ship of a more patient man”
There are poems exploring experiences of sex.
From ‘The Herring Lass and the Soap’:
“The school of him slipped over me”
“I can’t get naked without gutting myself”
On lost love I was particularly moved by the sadness of ‘The Sound of a Knot Being Untied’.
From ‘If I Let You Film Me…’
“we’ll see love when we’ve forgotten how it’s done.”
Although affecting there is nothing mawkish about the collection, rather each poem grasps the essence of the situation it evokes. The offerings roll through myths and the cruelties of nature but are grounded in humanity.
Varied and individually noteworthy, I was not surprised to learn that several of the works included have already won awards.
Read slowly and savour. This is a literary feast.
My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Nine Arches Press.
April 16, 2018
Poems from over 25 magazines ("Magma" and "The Rialto" amongst them) and some prize-winners, so it's surprising that in the acknowledgements she writes "These small acts of support made me come back to poetry when I had decided to quit". It's refreshing to see that even accomplished poets have self doubt.
Many of the poems involve more than one person - persona and parent or lover; persona and animal; I/You. She likes to use steel at lot, also birds, bees, nets, fish and fishermen. Much of the symbolism clusters around the Fisherman (male, salt sweat, sperm) and Selkies, mermaids or caught fish (female, shiny). Fishermen get caught too.
I needed to read most of the poems more than once, partly because there are many one-offs. "To kill a robin" has a "Lammas Hireling" feel to it - myth plus dialect. "Beatrix Potter's Bed" and "Joan of Arc" deal with historical characters. "What the Sindy House Taught Me" is great fun - "There will be doors you cannot open,/ views printed to the windows endlessly". I could go on, though rather than tackle the other poems individually, I'll try to work through some themes.
Prose - The pieces range widely over the poetry/prose continuum. That said, the line/stanza breaks seem pretty much irrelevant in these pieces. I like "The Museum of Water" - it's one of several poems (e.g. "The House the Wanted to be a Boat") where aspects of Land and Sea are exchanged. Set out in couplets, it begins with "There is nothing we keep to remember/ but water", then lists some items in the collection - "Our tears don't look like much, barely fill// a hotel pot of jam ... beads of cold showers,/ the blood of a snowman that melted so fast". Lists allow continuity (a prose feature) and juxtaposition (a putative poetry feature). For a while, texts in the form of [shopping] lists were sent to poetry magazines because there was no alternative, but now there are more outlets for short texts, so I think "The Museum of Water" could appear in either classification. Ditto for "The Fisher Daughter", which is a list of Dos and Don'ts.
"The Woman who could not say love" concerns a woman who darns a man's coat pocket so that he could feel the ruck if his hands were cold. That's the plot of the piece, the affecting factor that could have been part of a short story. The linguistic glitter is that she writes her love with "a needle held to the window, looping an apostrophe of sunlight to his coat". This piece feels rather like prose with poetic accessories.
In contrast, "The Herring Lass and the Soap" (and the majority of the other poems) more intricately fuses description and imagery.
Similes - There are many of these - some short, some extended. "The Loss Adjusters" shows the variety - "a man climbs out of bed, creaks on a tie and tucks a flask of milk into a satchel like a doctor arriving too late" - I don't really get that; "the house waits for someone to adjust our losses simply as a corset" - I don't really get that. When I've seen corsets adjusted in films it seems painful and exploitative - is that the intention here? "the house" introduces further complications; "Footfall soft as wing-skin" - is wing-skin soft?; "smile like a doorstep"; "cursive [writing] stingy as spooled twine"
Poeticalising - Occasionally, poems seem to try too hard to sound poetical - "Kissing the Man with the Beard of Bees" begins with "There's small life in the sugar bowl./ The waitress parts grains with a spoon, lifts// insect and bowl to the door and pours/ a pale storm into the cracked cup of the day". I don't see what this straining language adds. "The Woman with No Name" has a niggly word exchange - "Mother/ veined to my underwear, stitched to my calves"
Riddles - Faced with a phrase I don't understand I have a determined but limited approach. I tend to read the poem to the end (because an explanation might come later) then read the phrase again. Sometimes phrases sound good without me feeling I need to "understand" them. But (and in this I suspect I'm different to many readers) if I still don't get it, I tend not to ignore it as if it weren't there, but treat it as a defect of sorts. Perhaps the poet gambled that an obscure phrase would work for some people and not others. In such situations the poet might say "if you don't get it, don't worry about it", but why shouldn't I treat it as a bad phrase which could wreck the poem? Suppose nobody gets the line? This approach to reading seems to favour conservatism and safe writing. I look upon it more as a plea for reader-friendly writing. After all, the poet can use notes either in the book or online.
The obscurity of a poem can be heterogeneous. Ends of poems are prone to phrases that are enigmatic, tempting the reader to reach beyond the rational poem. Sometimes there's sudden lucidity amongst centrifugal forces, almost as if the poem started with a lyrical fragment that the poet wanted to extend without making the result too linear. Here are a few examples -
* "Featherweight" is rich and strange throughout.
* "My Father Snaps off Mermaids like Porn" contains "Dad swipes an arc of sun to the window" (i.e. Dad starts to clean the window); "The nailbrush on the ledge concedes like a kid with a Mohawk parted for church" (I like the image but why "on the ledge"? Why "concedes"?) "I stare at blood on my legs, a join-the-dots of my life./ Because it's not for us, Son, this merman stuff" (I thought the scene was a tool-hut or fish-gutting hut that hadn't been visited for a while. Perhaps the father's discouraging the son from following his profession. But why is "Son" capitalised? Surely it's not a religious reference. And I don't get the title)
* "When we don't talk about the weather" ends with "The breakers foam with boy spit, carry bones/ ashore. Bladderwrack wraps lost lips in a bow,/ sea snails scrawl apologies all over blue tongues". "spit", "lips" and "tongues" associated with "mouth" but I can't see why. I presume "bow" is a knot rather than the front of a boat.
* "Our Names in Pebbles" contains "The barrels are always gone, old men roll/ home, fires in whiskers, breath bobbing/ for kisses their wives have yet to learn" - have the old men rolled the barrels home? What are fires in whiskers? In another poem there's "Whiskers fiery as a streak of fawn// in overgrown orchards", so perhaps it just means they have ginger moustaches? What does "breath bobbing" mean? Is it like apple bobbing (hence the barrels)? I doubt it.
* "Backendish" - "Mother kicks her sandals under the stairs/ and scrolls on canary socks". "canary socks" means "yellow socks"? She uncurls the rolled-up socks like a scroll before putting them on?
Many of the poems involve more than one person - persona and parent or lover; persona and animal; I/You. She likes to use steel at lot, also birds, bees, nets, fish and fishermen. Much of the symbolism clusters around the Fisherman (male, salt sweat, sperm) and Selkies, mermaids or caught fish (female, shiny). Fishermen get caught too.
I needed to read most of the poems more than once, partly because there are many one-offs. "To kill a robin" has a "Lammas Hireling" feel to it - myth plus dialect. "Beatrix Potter's Bed" and "Joan of Arc" deal with historical characters. "What the Sindy House Taught Me" is great fun - "There will be doors you cannot open,/ views printed to the windows endlessly". I could go on, though rather than tackle the other poems individually, I'll try to work through some themes.
Prose - The pieces range widely over the poetry/prose continuum. That said, the line/stanza breaks seem pretty much irrelevant in these pieces. I like "The Museum of Water" - it's one of several poems (e.g. "The House the Wanted to be a Boat") where aspects of Land and Sea are exchanged. Set out in couplets, it begins with "There is nothing we keep to remember/ but water", then lists some items in the collection - "Our tears don't look like much, barely fill// a hotel pot of jam ... beads of cold showers,/ the blood of a snowman that melted so fast". Lists allow continuity (a prose feature) and juxtaposition (a putative poetry feature). For a while, texts in the form of [shopping] lists were sent to poetry magazines because there was no alternative, but now there are more outlets for short texts, so I think "The Museum of Water" could appear in either classification. Ditto for "The Fisher Daughter", which is a list of Dos and Don'ts.
"The Woman who could not say love" concerns a woman who darns a man's coat pocket so that he could feel the ruck if his hands were cold. That's the plot of the piece, the affecting factor that could have been part of a short story. The linguistic glitter is that she writes her love with "a needle held to the window, looping an apostrophe of sunlight to his coat". This piece feels rather like prose with poetic accessories.
In contrast, "The Herring Lass and the Soap" (and the majority of the other poems) more intricately fuses description and imagery.
Similes - There are many of these - some short, some extended. "The Loss Adjusters" shows the variety - "a man climbs out of bed, creaks on a tie and tucks a flask of milk into a satchel like a doctor arriving too late" - I don't really get that; "the house waits for someone to adjust our losses simply as a corset" - I don't really get that. When I've seen corsets adjusted in films it seems painful and exploitative - is that the intention here? "the house" introduces further complications; "Footfall soft as wing-skin" - is wing-skin soft?; "smile like a doorstep"; "cursive [writing] stingy as spooled twine"
Poeticalising - Occasionally, poems seem to try too hard to sound poetical - "Kissing the Man with the Beard of Bees" begins with "There's small life in the sugar bowl./ The waitress parts grains with a spoon, lifts// insect and bowl to the door and pours/ a pale storm into the cracked cup of the day". I don't see what this straining language adds. "The Woman with No Name" has a niggly word exchange - "Mother/ veined to my underwear, stitched to my calves"
Riddles - Faced with a phrase I don't understand I have a determined but limited approach. I tend to read the poem to the end (because an explanation might come later) then read the phrase again. Sometimes phrases sound good without me feeling I need to "understand" them. But (and in this I suspect I'm different to many readers) if I still don't get it, I tend not to ignore it as if it weren't there, but treat it as a defect of sorts. Perhaps the poet gambled that an obscure phrase would work for some people and not others. In such situations the poet might say "if you don't get it, don't worry about it", but why shouldn't I treat it as a bad phrase which could wreck the poem? Suppose nobody gets the line? This approach to reading seems to favour conservatism and safe writing. I look upon it more as a plea for reader-friendly writing. After all, the poet can use notes either in the book or online.
The obscurity of a poem can be heterogeneous. Ends of poems are prone to phrases that are enigmatic, tempting the reader to reach beyond the rational poem. Sometimes there's sudden lucidity amongst centrifugal forces, almost as if the poem started with a lyrical fragment that the poet wanted to extend without making the result too linear. Here are a few examples -
* "Featherweight" is rich and strange throughout.
* "My Father Snaps off Mermaids like Porn" contains "Dad swipes an arc of sun to the window" (i.e. Dad starts to clean the window); "The nailbrush on the ledge concedes like a kid with a Mohawk parted for church" (I like the image but why "on the ledge"? Why "concedes"?) "I stare at blood on my legs, a join-the-dots of my life./ Because it's not for us, Son, this merman stuff" (I thought the scene was a tool-hut or fish-gutting hut that hadn't been visited for a while. Perhaps the father's discouraging the son from following his profession. But why is "Son" capitalised? Surely it's not a religious reference. And I don't get the title)
* "When we don't talk about the weather" ends with "The breakers foam with boy spit, carry bones/ ashore. Bladderwrack wraps lost lips in a bow,/ sea snails scrawl apologies all over blue tongues". "spit", "lips" and "tongues" associated with "mouth" but I can't see why. I presume "bow" is a knot rather than the front of a boat.
* "Our Names in Pebbles" contains "The barrels are always gone, old men roll/ home, fires in whiskers, breath bobbing/ for kisses their wives have yet to learn" - have the old men rolled the barrels home? What are fires in whiskers? In another poem there's "Whiskers fiery as a streak of fawn// in overgrown orchards", so perhaps it just means they have ginger moustaches? What does "breath bobbing" mean? Is it like apple bobbing (hence the barrels)? I doubt it.
* "Backendish" - "Mother kicks her sandals under the stairs/ and scrolls on canary socks". "canary socks" means "yellow socks"? She uncurls the rolled-up socks like a scroll before putting them on?
December 3, 2016
Angela Readman's new collection is full of unique imagery, which is often so surprising is takes your breath away. These poems are about seeing the small beauty in love and loss and they ring like bells. A wonderful book.
February 24, 2022
I often pass on poetry collections once read to friends, but The Book of Tides by Angela Readman is a collection I will keep and cherish for myself, to read again and again.
Her poems are as hynoptic as a siren's song, the language is musical and resonates with images that are both haunting and unsettling, like a half-remembered dream. Here there are mermaids and unwary fishermen, myths and legends flit easily between the pages, feeling as real as the emotions provoked. Just thinking of this collection makes me shiver, I'm eager to dive back in.
Her poems are as hynoptic as a siren's song, the language is musical and resonates with images that are both haunting and unsettling, like a half-remembered dream. Here there are mermaids and unwary fishermen, myths and legends flit easily between the pages, feeling as real as the emotions provoked. Just thinking of this collection makes me shiver, I'm eager to dive back in.
August 18, 2024
A beautiful collection of poetry with a lot of nautical imagery, blending reality and the fantastical.
December 1, 2016
Magical poetry from Angela Readman (who is a bit of a master at both prose and poetry), in a selection of poems that took me through many, many truly vivid and often visceral experiences, and which are so perfectly realised that they seem fixed in my brain. Some of these are places I'd been invited into by Angela during the delight that was Jo Bell's 52 (look it up if you love poetry, especially if you write), and some are places new to me with powerful voices that linger in memory as real. Stories, places, people, history are all here along with the fantastic and the everyday, and all presented in such wonderful use of language. Another gem from Nine Arches Press.
December 16, 2022
Day 24 Choice The Sealey Challenge 2022
April 2, 2017
I didn't love all the poems in this collection but the ones I did are outstanding and deserve five stars. A collection in the tradition of Robin Robertson and Helen Ivory - imbued with myth and magic. Readman knows how to weave a tale and her language is fresh and original.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews