What do you think?
Rate this book
Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow
A moving meditation on grief and motherhood by one of Britain's most celebrated poets.
The British poet Denise Riley is one of the finest and most individual writers at work in English today. With her striking musical gifts, she is as happy in traditional forms as experimental, and though her poetry has a kinship to that of the New York School, at heart she is unaligned with any tribe. A distinguished philosopher and feminist theorist as well as a poet, Riley has produced a body of work that is both intellectually uncompromising and emotionally open. This book, her first collection of poems to appear with an American press, includes Riley’s widely acclaimed recent volume Say Something Back , a lyric meditation on bereavement composed, as she has written, “in imagined solidarity with the endless others whose adult children have died, often in far worse circumstances.” Riley’s new prose work, Time Lived, Without Its Flow , returns to the subject of grief, just as grief returns in memory to be continually relived.
The British poet Denise Riley is one of the finest and most individual writers at work in English today. With her striking musical gifts, she is as happy in traditional forms as experimental, and though her poetry has a kinship to that of the New York School, at heart she is unaligned with any tribe. A distinguished philosopher and feminist theorist as well as a poet, Riley has produced a body of work that is both intellectually uncompromising and emotionally open. This book, her first collection of poems to appear with an American press, includes Riley’s widely acclaimed recent volume Say Something Back , a lyric meditation on bereavement composed, as she has written, “in imagined solidarity with the endless others whose adult children have died, often in far worse circumstances.” Riley’s new prose work, Time Lived, Without Its Flow , returns to the subject of grief, just as grief returns in memory to be continually relived.
136 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 2016
18 people are currently reading
785 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
September 7, 2020
I often struggle with poetry and sometimes decoding this wasn’t easy. There are a great many references to other things and other works. The focus is often on death and particularly the death of Riley’s adult son Jacob. She looks from many angles including the effect on her feelings about her daughter:
‘What is the first duty of a mother to a child?
At least to keep the wretched thing alive – Band
Of fierce cicadas, stop this shrilling.
My daughter lightly leaves our house.
The thought rears up: fix in your mind this
Maybe final glimpse of her. Yes, lightning could.
I make this note of dread, I register it.
Neither my note nor my critique of it
Will save us one iota. I know it. And.’
There is bleak humour and self-analysis. Riley questions her ability to turn her private mourning into the public presentation of poetry. It’s all an account of grief and survival. This his Riley’s first foray back into poetry since 2000; in the meantime she has been concentrating on feminist theory and language.
There’s some interesting word play as well. Riley looks at a few Biblical verses. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [12] For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
Riley rewrites:
“When I was a child I spoke as a thrush, I
thought as a clod, I understood as a stone,
but when I became a man I put away
plain things for lustrous, yet to this day
squat under hooves for kindness where
fetlocks stream with mud – shall I never
get it clear, down in the soily waters.”
As one reviewer says that really does muddy the waters.
The central theme is the heart wrenching loss of a child:
“Each child gets cannibalised by its years.
It was a man who died, and in him died
The large-eyed boy, then the teen peacock
In the unremarked placid self-devouring
That makes up being alive. But all at once
Those natural overlaps got cut, then shuffled
Tight in a block, their layers patted square.”
And
“Dun blur of this evening’s lurch to
Eventual navy night. Yet another
Night, day, night, over and over.
I so want to join you.”
“The souls of the dead are the spirit of language:
you hear them alight inside that spoken thought.”
The poems are deeply moving and immediate. They ae also erudite and scholarly. This is poetry of a high order springing from grief.
‘What is the first duty of a mother to a child?
At least to keep the wretched thing alive – Band
Of fierce cicadas, stop this shrilling.
My daughter lightly leaves our house.
The thought rears up: fix in your mind this
Maybe final glimpse of her. Yes, lightning could.
I make this note of dread, I register it.
Neither my note nor my critique of it
Will save us one iota. I know it. And.’
There is bleak humour and self-analysis. Riley questions her ability to turn her private mourning into the public presentation of poetry. It’s all an account of grief and survival. This his Riley’s first foray back into poetry since 2000; in the meantime she has been concentrating on feminist theory and language.
There’s some interesting word play as well. Riley looks at a few Biblical verses. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. [12] For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
Riley rewrites:
“When I was a child I spoke as a thrush, I
thought as a clod, I understood as a stone,
but when I became a man I put away
plain things for lustrous, yet to this day
squat under hooves for kindness where
fetlocks stream with mud – shall I never
get it clear, down in the soily waters.”
As one reviewer says that really does muddy the waters.
The central theme is the heart wrenching loss of a child:
“Each child gets cannibalised by its years.
It was a man who died, and in him died
The large-eyed boy, then the teen peacock
In the unremarked placid self-devouring
That makes up being alive. But all at once
Those natural overlaps got cut, then shuffled
Tight in a block, their layers patted square.”
And
“Dun blur of this evening’s lurch to
Eventual navy night. Yet another
Night, day, night, over and over.
I so want to join you.”
“The souls of the dead are the spirit of language:
you hear them alight inside that spoken thought.”
The poems are deeply moving and immediate. They ae also erudite and scholarly. This is poetry of a high order springing from grief.
Read
July 26, 20172/10 Hatred of/ Contemporary Poetry module
January 29, 2017
(Nearly 4.5) Many of the poems in this Costa- and T.S. Eliot-shortlisted collection reflect on the sudden death of Riley’s adult son, Jacob. The magnificent “A Part Song” reminded me of a more variegated In Memoriam: a long, multi-part elegy that experiments with different registers and styles. “She do the bereaved in different voices,” everything from “Oh my dead son you daft bugger / This is one glum mum” to “Outgoing soul, I try to catch / You calling over the distances / Though your voice is echoey.”
Two other long poems are highlights: “The patient who had no insides” incorporates historical medical theory in an account of abdominal surgery (“This oddness of // Owning spare parts. Our bodies littered with redundancies, / Walking reliquaries rattling our appendices, blunt tails, / Primordial.”), while the focus on the immediate aftermath of World War I in the final poem, “‘A gramophone on the subject’”, cements the theme of loss.
Some of the vocabulary and phrasing here is so unusual that I ended up reading certain lines (in “Maybe; maybe not” and “Silent did depart,” for instance) five or six times before I felt I had some grasp of what they meant. I think the collection could be cut to more like 50 pages than 70 to remove some poems that are less germane to the central topic, which is why it misses out on a 5-star rating from me. But this is very fine work, and I will certainly seek out Riley’s previous books.
Two other long poems are highlights: “The patient who had no insides” incorporates historical medical theory in an account of abdominal surgery (“This oddness of // Owning spare parts. Our bodies littered with redundancies, / Walking reliquaries rattling our appendices, blunt tails, / Primordial.”), while the focus on the immediate aftermath of World War I in the final poem, “‘A gramophone on the subject’”, cements the theme of loss.
Some of the vocabulary and phrasing here is so unusual that I ended up reading certain lines (in “Maybe; maybe not” and “Silent did depart,” for instance) five or six times before I felt I had some grasp of what they meant. I think the collection could be cut to more like 50 pages than 70 to remove some poems that are less germane to the central topic, which is why it misses out on a 5-star rating from me. But this is very fine work, and I will certainly seek out Riley’s previous books.
Read
July 17, 20171/? for 'The Hatred of Poetry' module.
October 27, 2017
This was a gift from a loved one. Denise's poetry is profound and worthy of deep contemplation. Upon each re-reading I expect to discover new revelations.
August 25, 2023
Liked the poetry collection “Say Something Back” a lot, especially some of the more lyrical poems. DNF on the prose piece “Time Lived, Without Its Flow.” Just couldn’t connect with it.
June 5, 2023
Excerpts:
I slept. In my sleep, I wept as I
dreamt you were still good to me.
I awoke in unrelenting tears.
(from “Following Heine”)
“Move on,” you hear, but to what howling emptiness?
(from “Little Eva”)
I try to find you, yet you are not here. / I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in—
(from “Hiding in plain sight”)
There was and there is a life, I swim in it, but I wouldn’t say that it’s exactly “mine.”
(from “Pythian”)
I slept. In my sleep, I wept as I
dreamt you were still good to me.
I awoke in unrelenting tears.
(from “Following Heine”)
“Move on,” you hear, but to what howling emptiness?
(from “Little Eva”)
I try to find you, yet you are not here. / I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in—
(from “Hiding in plain sight”)
There was and there is a life, I swim in it, but I wouldn’t say that it’s exactly “mine.”
(from “Pythian”)
December 15, 2019
Not every poem for me connected, but those that did connected like a gutpunch.
February 20, 2017
A 2016 collection of some previous work and many new ones by
this British author who has been long distinguished.
A Parting Song is a long poem about grief and loss that is
republished here. It is deeply moving. Some poems talk to
her beloved dead, some address nature from crisp, cool
angles. Precise and modulated to reach just the right emotion
or image. Recommend.
this British author who has been long distinguished.
A Parting Song is a long poem about grief and loss that is
republished here. It is deeply moving. Some poems talk to
her beloved dead, some address nature from crisp, cool
angles. Precise and modulated to reach just the right emotion
or image. Recommend.
January 17, 2019
I am new to Riley and so glad I have now found her work. The initial sequence in this book that respond to the death of her son are intensely moving but fresh in their expression. She knows how to handle words and use a formal structure to contain and yet amplify feelings. There are a number of very fine poems in the rest of the collection but these first ones stand out as exceptional.
May 26, 2023
she's the business
another reread
another reread
March 10, 2020
Sometimes, when I'm really bowled over by a collection, it's hard for me to comment on it. I've heard Denise Riley's work described as "too intellectual", which, for me, is a label like "too feminist", i.e. an incitement to read it, not a disincentive. But it does take a little while to get to grips with Riley's voice: while her work is emotional, it's also considered, and she uses several layers of meaning and language in each of her poems. It's worth taking time with her work, and Riley invites you to follow her through her thoughts and references: she doesn't willfully confuse, but leads her reader to a deeper plane of meaning. She's also inventive, playful with language and form, and her work is lush with imagery. This collection is full of haunting grief for a dead child. It describes how the anger and intensity of grief is hard to witness or understand from the outside, and captures the extreme aloneness of being. But despite its darkness, I also found solace in this work, a sense of being witnessed and of witnessing. Paradoxically, we are both never alone and always alone: someone else has always experienced what we have experienced, and yet there are barriers around each individual that can never be breached. Riley finds the hope in this as well as the sadness.
There are many poems worth quoting (all of them, possibly), but part 11 of her long poem "A Part Song" inspired me to really focus on this collection:
Ardent bee, still you go blundering
With downy saddlebags stuffed tight
All over the fuchsia's drop earrings.
I'll cry 'Oh bee!' to you, instead -
Since my own dead, apostrophised,
Keep mute as this clear garnet glaze
You're bumping into. Blind diligence,
Bee, or idiocy - this banging on and on
Against such shiny crimson unresponse.
There are many poems worth quoting (all of them, possibly), but part 11 of her long poem "A Part Song" inspired me to really focus on this collection:
Ardent bee, still you go blundering
With downy saddlebags stuffed tight
All over the fuchsia's drop earrings.
I'll cry 'Oh bee!' to you, instead -
Since my own dead, apostrophised,
Keep mute as this clear garnet glaze
You're bumping into. Blind diligence,
Bee, or idiocy - this banging on and on
Against such shiny crimson unresponse.
April 16, 2017
I think I'm being harsh giving this collection two stars, but I think after I've read it a couple more times my view on it will probably go up. There's no denying that the collection is strong and shows a lot of creativity, I personally just found some of the language to be a bit difficult. You can feel the pain in most of these poems and i think its presented brilliantly. Some poems stuck out to me more than others but thats always expected in a collection.
November 10, 2018
Thoroughly enjoyed this modern poetry collection. I picked this up because of my university module and was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There were a few poems that I didn’t quite get or like but most of them I did and I liked the length of them.
May 30, 2019
If you haven't read Denise Riley yet, what are you even doing?
January 19, 2023
Some of these poems were beyond me, but I truly appreciated the following: “A Part Song ii,” “Still,” “And another thing,” “The patient who had no insides,” and “Oh go away for now.”
December 22, 2024
This beautiful book of poems is enhanced by reading Riley's 'Time Lived Without Its Flow', a masterful philosophical contemplation on Riley's own subjective experience of time after the death of her child.
Riley's poems propose a series of seemingly unrelated images. Each reader of Riley's poems will have some personal realisation when reading a poem. There is such purposeful ambiguity in her words that she generates a collective and individual awe for those reading her poems. The short lengths of the poems were more than made up for in their richness. Some favourites were:
'A Part Song', 'Tree seen from bed', 'The patient who had no insides' and 'Cardiomyopathy'.
Riley's poems propose a series of seemingly unrelated images. Each reader of Riley's poems will have some personal realisation when reading a poem. There is such purposeful ambiguity in her words that she generates a collective and individual awe for those reading her poems. The short lengths of the poems were more than made up for in their richness. Some favourites were:
'A Part Song', 'Tree seen from bed', 'The patient who had no insides' and 'Cardiomyopathy'.
October 18, 2025
At its best, some of the best poetry on grief I've read. At its lowest, I was head-scratching at some of the wordplay... might be a return-to-later / read-more-Riley sign.
Read
October 24, 2021if, by the end of my degree, i finally understand poetry, i'll be amazed
(not to say i didn't enjoy some of these poems, just that my brain is not made for metaphors)
(not to say i didn't enjoy some of these poems, just that my brain is not made for metaphors)
September 22, 2021
The more poetry I read, the more I realize just how much poetry is about grief. All poetry. If it's about love, it's also about grief. If it's about nature, it's also about grief. If it's about identity, it's about grief. If it's about religion, it's about grief. The same is true of this beautiful book of poems by Denise Riley.
This book reproduces Riley's A Part Song, which is one of the most prolific long poems of our time. These lines examine what it means to be human at the most vulnerable level: when we lose someone we love. And I feel I say this in almost every book I review, but it never ceases to be true: while the content itself is not unique - examining the loss of loved ones - the way that Riley uses language to arrive at such a deep understanding of humanity, is genuinely unlike anything else I've read.
At the heart of this book is a sense of wandering, a search for something beyond the loss the speaker is facing. "It's late. And it always will be late. / Your small monument's atop its hillock / set with pennants that slap, slap, over the soil" (7). It's a digging, a rummaging, a constant look over the shoulder to see if what they're looking for is behind them. "The souls of the dead are the spirit of language: / you hear them alight inside that spoken thought" (32). And we, the reader, are allowed to experience this need to see beyond the grave, beyond the veil of death.
One of the most astonishing aspects of this book is the brutal honesty the speaker gives to the page. "Sorrow alone reveals a constant pulse" (58). "My living on indicts me. If my own heart / contracted briefly, it still pushed past yours" (53). There's something brutal about the confessional quality of these lines, not only because the speaker is implicating themselves in the sin of living on after a loved one has died, but also because we, the reader, are implicated as well. All life is implicated for the mere fact of being alive in the face of another life cut short.
I think the hardest part of this collection is that the conclusion doesn't offer solace. So often - too often - when we are grieving, we're made more and more aware with every day that passes how little the loss means to other people. "'Move on,' you hear, but to what howling emptiness? / The kinder place is closest to your dead" (56). The speaker is unable to move beyond their grief because it, the grief, is the last thing connecting them to the one who has died. Moving on would be a severing of that bond. "I can't quite leave the autopsy room for good" (53). The speaker may not physically be in the autopsy room or at the grave site, but spiritually, emotionally, mentally, they haven't left either place. They are almost buried with the dead body, and this was a disturbing - albeit completely relatable - place to end the book.
I think this is why the writing of this book didn't strike me more. I was so startled by the brutality of it all, I found it hard to see the beauty. It is strongly implied that the speaker lost a child; having had two miscarriages, I have tried very hard not to allow myself to get trapped in the grief, to lose myself to what I lost. The idea of willingly embracing that tide, embracing the depth of grief and weighing anchor there, was shocking to me as I read the end of this book. But as I look back over the quotes now, I see that it isn't a giving up on life that's taking place, which is what it seemed to be when I first read it. Instead, it's actually looking for that reason to keep living. And maybe the speaker just hasn't found that reason yet, but by being so close to the death, by staying so close to the dead, they're giving themselves a less painful life.
Moving on would mean a life without their child. Staying "in the autopsy room," as the speaker puts it, at least lessens the finality of such a blatant disconnect.
This is a complex book of poems that really cuts open what it means to grieve.
This book reproduces Riley's A Part Song, which is one of the most prolific long poems of our time. These lines examine what it means to be human at the most vulnerable level: when we lose someone we love. And I feel I say this in almost every book I review, but it never ceases to be true: while the content itself is not unique - examining the loss of loved ones - the way that Riley uses language to arrive at such a deep understanding of humanity, is genuinely unlike anything else I've read.
At the heart of this book is a sense of wandering, a search for something beyond the loss the speaker is facing. "It's late. And it always will be late. / Your small monument's atop its hillock / set with pennants that slap, slap, over the soil" (7). It's a digging, a rummaging, a constant look over the shoulder to see if what they're looking for is behind them. "The souls of the dead are the spirit of language: / you hear them alight inside that spoken thought" (32). And we, the reader, are allowed to experience this need to see beyond the grave, beyond the veil of death.
One of the most astonishing aspects of this book is the brutal honesty the speaker gives to the page. "Sorrow alone reveals a constant pulse" (58). "My living on indicts me. If my own heart / contracted briefly, it still pushed past yours" (53). There's something brutal about the confessional quality of these lines, not only because the speaker is implicating themselves in the sin of living on after a loved one has died, but also because we, the reader, are implicated as well. All life is implicated for the mere fact of being alive in the face of another life cut short.
I think the hardest part of this collection is that the conclusion doesn't offer solace. So often - too often - when we are grieving, we're made more and more aware with every day that passes how little the loss means to other people. "'Move on,' you hear, but to what howling emptiness? / The kinder place is closest to your dead" (56). The speaker is unable to move beyond their grief because it, the grief, is the last thing connecting them to the one who has died. Moving on would be a severing of that bond. "I can't quite leave the autopsy room for good" (53). The speaker may not physically be in the autopsy room or at the grave site, but spiritually, emotionally, mentally, they haven't left either place. They are almost buried with the dead body, and this was a disturbing - albeit completely relatable - place to end the book.
I think this is why the writing of this book didn't strike me more. I was so startled by the brutality of it all, I found it hard to see the beauty. It is strongly implied that the speaker lost a child; having had two miscarriages, I have tried very hard not to allow myself to get trapped in the grief, to lose myself to what I lost. The idea of willingly embracing that tide, embracing the depth of grief and weighing anchor there, was shocking to me as I read the end of this book. But as I look back over the quotes now, I see that it isn't a giving up on life that's taking place, which is what it seemed to be when I first read it. Instead, it's actually looking for that reason to keep living. And maybe the speaker just hasn't found that reason yet, but by being so close to the death, by staying so close to the dead, they're giving themselves a less painful life.
Moving on would mean a life without their child. Staying "in the autopsy room," as the speaker puts it, at least lessens the finality of such a blatant disconnect.
This is a complex book of poems that really cuts open what it means to grieve.
April 11, 2021
Magnificent lyrics with a fierce sense of line. Riley can turn out some devastating sentences. Seeking a "companionate exile" in timelessness, as vigil for her son, after his untimely death, the collection, and its final long essay, considers the possibility of "a literature of consolation" while making acutely known how all losses have an impact on one's experience of time.
The pairing of Say Something Back with Time Lived, Without its Flow in this NYRB collection *does* freight it with a certain dark uniformity of voice and theme – the serial poems on illness and war death coupled with individual lyrics of personal loss has the consequence of banishing light or making egress difficult. If Riley were not so courageous and resourceful, this work might sit in a 'category' of literature, to put it one way.
Time Lived... was particularly difficult for me to finish given its necessary repetitions in exploring a phenomenology of grief, self-loss and child-loss – as clearly it was difficult to write. In its final stretch, the essay nearly attempts a poetics and apology for its preface, the collection of poems, that like Adorno's "after ..." would otherwise seem impossible to read, write or bear.
So difficult, yes, but critical. Essential work.
The pairing of Say Something Back with Time Lived, Without its Flow in this NYRB collection *does* freight it with a certain dark uniformity of voice and theme – the serial poems on illness and war death coupled with individual lyrics of personal loss has the consequence of banishing light or making egress difficult. If Riley were not so courageous and resourceful, this work might sit in a 'category' of literature, to put it one way.
Time Lived... was particularly difficult for me to finish given its necessary repetitions in exploring a phenomenology of grief, self-loss and child-loss – as clearly it was difficult to write. In its final stretch, the essay nearly attempts a poetics and apology for its preface, the collection of poems, that like Adorno's "after ..." would otherwise seem impossible to read, write or bear.
So difficult, yes, but critical. Essential work.
December 12, 2016
Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. I'm just so staggeringly ignorant when it comes to poetry, but I've decided to embrace that and to do three things: 1) read a lot more of it; 2) listen to smart people analyze it; and 3) respect my instincts. There were poems in Say Something Back that were completely inscrutable for me. There were poems where I focused just on the sound and blend of the words, without caring that I didn't understand their meaning. And then there were poems that were heartbreakingly clear and fresh and raw. Riley's meditations on absence and grief, inspired by her son's death, at times took my breath away. Whether or not you're a regular poetry reader, there's something in here for you.
February 22, 2017
T.S. Eliot said something about liking a poem before you can understand it, because of the way it's written, or how it feels. That's probably how to describe my experience of reading this book. It often feels daunting and intellectual, and perhaps sometimes this becomes excessive. But it's a powerful and emotional book; definitely strongest in its poems about grief. Riley takes some getting used to, and is almost certainly an acquired taste - this is definitely more complex than the majority of poetry I read. But, merely for the impression it leaves, and for the experience of reading it, it deserves four stars.
June 4, 2024
Say Something Back is a emotional collection of poetry written by Denise Riley exploring the death of her son Jacob, motherhood and its challenges and triumphs, war and identity. Riley was a Professor of Literature with Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, so it is unsurprising that her poetry is descriptive and imaginative, while questioning and examining the most human truth of all, death. Her poems are wrote in lyrical mode and they have a strong rhythm, her choice to open this collection with the poem ‘A Part Song’ was particularly moving and some of these lines are too beautiful to not mention:
‘What is the first duty of a mother to a child?
At least to keep the wretched thing alive’
‘It’s late, and it will always be late.’
‘Didn’t we love you. As we do. But by now
We’re bored with our unproductive love,
And infinitely more bored by your staying dead
Which can hardly interest you much, either’
A couple of the poems didn’t appeal to me personally, such as the ‘Patient who had no insides’ which discusses medicine and health, which just isn’t one of my interests. But her word choice and expression still comes across lovely. It is easy to see why this body of work was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry.
‘What is the first duty of a mother to a child?
At least to keep the wretched thing alive’
‘It’s late, and it will always be late.’
‘Didn’t we love you. As we do. But by now
We’re bored with our unproductive love,
And infinitely more bored by your staying dead
Which can hardly interest you much, either’
A couple of the poems didn’t appeal to me personally, such as the ‘Patient who had no insides’ which discusses medicine and health, which just isn’t one of my interests. But her word choice and expression still comes across lovely. It is easy to see why this body of work was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry.
August 26, 2017
Hard to review this book of often deeply personal poems and always poems that matter. Some touched me and some did not, all were recognisably 'good'. I read it on a crowded train, which was a difficult location for some of the subjects. It had me gasping aloud and clapping my hand to my mouth at times which is, I suppose, a good sign.
I'd heard Denise Riley talk about the collection, which speaks to world wars and to the death of her grown up son but was still taken aback by the absolute truth of her poetic descriptions of her grieving thoughts... that repeated sense of 'what? are you still dead?'
I'd heard Denise Riley talk about the collection, which speaks to world wars and to the death of her grown up son but was still taken aback by the absolute truth of her poetic descriptions of her grieving thoughts... that repeated sense of 'what? are you still dead?'
November 20, 2017
I don't read too much poetry but after buying this for my partner I thought I'd give it a try. What struck me about Riley's writing was the sheer ambiguity but also sharp pain and despair that was almost always present. A difficult and often blunt writing style that is very remarkable but also somehow both defensive and offensive. Observational but also somehow transformative and personal.
I liked the layout of the book too although not a fan of the generic looking cover.
I liked the layout of the book too although not a fan of the generic looking cover.
December 20, 2017
First time ever reading Riley, and wow. A deep, thick, sad book, revolving around her grief after her son's death. First two-thirds are powerful, if intensely focused on just one theme; the last third lost me a bit, with the rhyming poetry. Riley especially excels where she backs oddness, nuance, and power into one or two mundane words paired together to make a startling combination. Truly artistic.
August 25, 2022
compulsory reading for my poetry module. i didn’t feel entirely connected with the poems as i didn’t fully understand them. at the start there were huge differences in the lengths of the poems, which made the text lack in a flow. i got into the text but definitely wouldn’t rush to re-read the text or other poetry by this author.
January 30, 2025
While my already-favourite ('A Part Song') wasn't dethroned, this collection is full of startling poems, with voices screaming calmly to be heard, for their loss and hurt to be validated. The final poem in the collection, 'A Gramophone on the Subject, was especially good, lingering long afterwards as an echo of generational, historical grief.
July 2, 2017
these were VRY gd
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews