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Divisible by Itself and One
A new poetry collection from Britain's foremost truth-teller, in Divisible by Itself and One Kae Tempest masterfully steers a path between their more public-facing performance and dramatic work and the contemplative voice that came to the fore in Running Upon the Wires.
Questions of integrity – hence the prime number of the title – are addressed in direct, affecting terms: how can we be true to ourselves while under constant pressure to conform? Throughout the poems, ideas of form – of the body, gender, and in nature – resurface and resolve.
Stories of transformation hold a central place in Tempest’s work, their best to date; here, the poet considers the changes that are sometimes required to be oneself.
Questions of integrity – hence the prime number of the title – are addressed in direct, affecting terms: how can we be true to ourselves while under constant pressure to conform? Throughout the poems, ideas of form – of the body, gender, and in nature – resurface and resolve.
Stories of transformation hold a central place in Tempest’s work, their best to date; here, the poet considers the changes that are sometimes required to be oneself.
54 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
March 11, 2024
This is Kae Tempest’s 14th book, its title referring to the definition of prime numbers. I’d read one of their previous collections, Let Them Eat Chaos, and enjoyed the performance poetry rhythms. There is a similar feel here – urban settings; internal and end rhymes – but more experimentation with theme, style and tone. Often the poet crosses casual speech with a formal approach: “Body” is composed of two nontraditional sonnets, while “The loop” is a villanelle. I also noted a repeated phrase as a fulcrum between the two stanzas of “Do it for the joy.”
The prose piece “Swear” features a heartbroken nonbinary god in the wreckage of the Garden of Eden: “Groaning in the empty garden in a moment that lasted till now, the almighty swore they’d never love again. And the words of the oath were famine, pestilence, genocide, flood.” It’s not the only biblical allusion; “Flood” references Noah and one epigraph is from Isaiah. Climate breakdown is a source of background dread, with “Even the youths shall faint and be weary” a sarcastic response to people’s relief at young people’s engagement with the environment – “Manaic adults peddling hope. Surely / the kids will sort it.”
“Wind in the tall trees” takes on a rough tree shape on the page. There are a couple of apparent break-up scenes, but a tentative new relationship fuels tender, mildly erotic love poems (“Flight” and “Fig”). The alliteration in “Pride” evokes a gradual coming to grips with gender identity: “Pride by degrees. It’s relative / I’ve carried my shame / like a drunk friend dragged / through the days of my life. / Damn dysphoria.” “Cocoon” envisions a transformation, which comes to fruition in the final poem, the LGBTQ manifesto “Love song for queens, studs, butches, daddies, fags and all the other angels.” Here the poet hymns queer heroes, then joins them. “You are the strongest ones among us. Daring as you do to live. Wholly as you are. While the rest of us go straight // to pieces for what we can’t bear to admit we carry.” What a fantastic tease that enjambment is.
I found more variety than cohesion here, but Tempest is likely to attract readers who wouldn’t usually turn to poetry. This is one I’d recommend to fans of Surge by Jay Bernard and Some Integrity by Padraig Regan.
More favourite lines:
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The prose piece “Swear” features a heartbroken nonbinary god in the wreckage of the Garden of Eden: “Groaning in the empty garden in a moment that lasted till now, the almighty swore they’d never love again. And the words of the oath were famine, pestilence, genocide, flood.” It’s not the only biblical allusion; “Flood” references Noah and one epigraph is from Isaiah. Climate breakdown is a source of background dread, with “Even the youths shall faint and be weary” a sarcastic response to people’s relief at young people’s engagement with the environment – “Manaic adults peddling hope. Surely / the kids will sort it.”
“Wind in the tall trees” takes on a rough tree shape on the page. There are a couple of apparent break-up scenes, but a tentative new relationship fuels tender, mildly erotic love poems (“Flight” and “Fig”). The alliteration in “Pride” evokes a gradual coming to grips with gender identity: “Pride by degrees. It’s relative / I’ve carried my shame / like a drunk friend dragged / through the days of my life. / Damn dysphoria.” “Cocoon” envisions a transformation, which comes to fruition in the final poem, the LGBTQ manifesto “Love song for queens, studs, butches, daddies, fags and all the other angels.” Here the poet hymns queer heroes, then joins them. “You are the strongest ones among us. Daring as you do to live. Wholly as you are. While the rest of us go straight // to pieces for what we can’t bear to admit we carry.” What a fantastic tease that enjambment is.
I found more variety than cohesion here, but Tempest is likely to attract readers who wouldn’t usually turn to poetry. This is one I’d recommend to fans of Surge by Jay Bernard and Some Integrity by Padraig Regan.
More favourite lines:
“Why not stick it out with this insane human being, rather than dig it all up just to replant yourself in a parallel hole.” (from “Absurd”)
“life’s a chance to do.
It’s all been done before. We make it new” (from “Morning”)
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
June 11, 2023
I want to sing you early songs. Go deeper.
I want to take you back where you began,
Find the scraps of you, you hid in secret
And bring them back to life beneath my tongue.
A stunning poetry collection.
What a talent.
I want to take you back where you began,
Find the scraps of you, you hid in secret
And bring them back to life beneath my tongue.
A stunning poetry collection.
What a talent.
February 7, 2024
De poëzie van Kae Tempest is doordrongen van thematiek die de zoekende, wroetende mens aanspreekt: vervreemding, de onmogelijkheid op te leven naar andermans verwachtingen, de constante uitdaging op te leven naar je eigen verwachtingen, de drang naar connectie, de gevolgen van het te gretig op zoek gaan naar die connectie.
De hoogtes en laagtes en de feestjes en katers van het leven.
Het zoeken, het vluchten, het vloeken, het zuchten.
Dit alles serveren ze in toegankelijke, snelle en klare taal. Verteerbaar, behapbaar en rechttoe rechtaan, maar daarom niet vrijblijvend.
Poëzie met beide voeten in het leven: vanuit de buik, het hart en het constant worstelende zelf. Oprecht, dichtbij en bijna tastbaar.
De stem van Tempest, op plaat of op papier, treft dikwijls raak en lijkt telkens een uitnodiging mee te dragen om connectie te maken: met jezelf, je omgeving of de wereld om je heen. Heerlijk!
De hoogtes en laagtes en de feestjes en katers van het leven.
Het zoeken, het vluchten, het vloeken, het zuchten.
Dit alles serveren ze in toegankelijke, snelle en klare taal. Verteerbaar, behapbaar en rechttoe rechtaan, maar daarom niet vrijblijvend.
Poëzie met beide voeten in het leven: vanuit de buik, het hart en het constant worstelende zelf. Oprecht, dichtbij en bijna tastbaar.
De stem van Tempest, op plaat of op papier, treft dikwijls raak en lijkt telkens een uitnodiging mee te dragen om connectie te maken: met jezelf, je omgeving of de wereld om je heen. Heerlijk!
May 12, 2023
“Let poems be the windows, not the views.” Enjoyably preoccupied with trees. Kae’s joy shines through 👏🏼
August 17, 2023
Reflections and lessons learned/the content of this book made me feel…
“She liked being where nowhere else would go… she liked to not remember where she’d been… some things are better picked before they grow…”
Everyone needs to hear and feel the raw sometimes, and these collections always manage the reflection without the melancholy - more stating as a fact but without burying the pain purposefully deep or out of reach. As always, comforting in recognising the shittiness and discomfort - an amazing collection and a great performance
“…let the poem be the windows, not the views…”
Aug 23: Also greedily wanted to read in print for a different interaction with the text - so good…
“She liked being where nowhere else would go… she liked to not remember where she’d been… some things are better picked before they grow…”
Everyone needs to hear and feel the raw sometimes, and these collections always manage the reflection without the melancholy - more stating as a fact but without burying the pain purposefully deep or out of reach. As always, comforting in recognising the shittiness and discomfort - an amazing collection and a great performance
“…let the poem be the windows, not the views…”
Aug 23: Also greedily wanted to read in print for a different interaction with the text - so good…
April 14, 2025
a mixed bag but i still love u kae
July 30, 2023
"And thanks to all the weirdos who make the world bearable."
July 1, 2023
Sehr berührende Sammlung von Gedichten. Manchmal eher rauer und manchmal eher zärtlich.
Hat auch sehr Spaß gemacht die Gedichte, je nachdem wie man mag, 'gemischt' zu lesen. Mal einen Vers Englisch, dann den Vers auf Deutsch oder eine Strophe. Oder auch das Gedicht nur auf Englisch oder nur auf Deutsch zu lesen. Sehr spannend ist es dabei nachzuvollziehen, wie sich im Detail beim Übersetzen entschieden wurde, bestimmte Ausdrucksweisen umzusetzen.
Hat auch sehr Spaß gemacht die Gedichte, je nachdem wie man mag, 'gemischt' zu lesen. Mal einen Vers Englisch, dann den Vers auf Deutsch oder eine Strophe. Oder auch das Gedicht nur auf Englisch oder nur auf Deutsch zu lesen. Sehr spannend ist es dabei nachzuvollziehen, wie sich im Detail beim Übersetzen entschieden wurde, bestimmte Ausdrucksweisen umzusetzen.
November 8, 2024
Levy queer book club read, Nov 2024
My first time delving into a poetry book since studying English Lit at college! It definitely took a while to get into the rhythm of reading something so different - I wish I’d committed a bit more, taken my time and maybe even read out loud. But there were some gorgeous moments in this collection and Kae Tempest is clearly immeasurably talented. Great fun to try something new, even if there was a mix of hits and misses for me.
My first time delving into a poetry book since studying English Lit at college! It definitely took a while to get into the rhythm of reading something so different - I wish I’d committed a bit more, taken my time and maybe even read out loud. But there were some gorgeous moments in this collection and Kae Tempest is clearly immeasurably talented. Great fun to try something new, even if there was a mix of hits and misses for me.
May 7, 2023
I loved this. Raw, powerful poems that feel like they encapsulate an undoing and a doing over. They read like an act of absolution. There are so many moments I love in this collection. The final, joyful poem is more like a hymn to the queer and trans community.
I have lots of thoughts about this collection and I'm not entirely sure how to organise them yet. It's a book I will return to again and again, I think. For now it feels like a process of reaching a sense of identification and acceptance through an undoing and a letting go. It is more powerful than a surrender and it becomes celebratory but doesn't shy away from pain and anger and the rawness of the unshaping process.
I have lots of thoughts about this collection and I'm not entirely sure how to organise them yet. It's a book I will return to again and again, I think. For now it feels like a process of reaching a sense of identification and acceptance through an undoing and a letting go. It is more powerful than a surrender and it becomes celebratory but doesn't shy away from pain and anger and the rawness of the unshaping process.
June 22, 2023
Als het orakel spreekt, kan je enkel luisteren
February 27, 2024
Two fish on a plate
open their eyes.
open their eyes.
December 26, 2023
There were some great and lovely poems in this collection and Tempest's rhythm and feeling for language is amazing.
As with most poetry collection, there were some poems I liked better than others and I do think I like some of Tempest's other works better, but this was still very good and very powerful!
As with most poetry collection, there were some poems I liked better than others and I do think I like some of Tempest's other works better, but this was still very good and very powerful!
January 27, 2024
i burst into tears reading the last poem. kae has such a kind and humble writing that digs all of our hidden parts the feelings we reject the face we see in the mirror. but they do that by standing right next to us, being human as we all are. beautiful book.
July 6, 2025
Very excited for the new album, got to go to his poetry performance (w/ no music) today, was insane as always
This poem cracked me up in this collection, didn’t have time to ask him what it was about -
Us
Two fish on a plate
Open their eyes
🐟🐟🐟
This poem cracked me up in this collection, didn’t have time to ask him what it was about -
Us
Two fish on a plate
Open their eyes
🐟🐟🐟
July 21, 2025
I always want to hear everything Kae has to say
July 30, 2024
This is the first book by Kae Tempest I read and absolutely loved it, the Q&A reflection afterwards also great food for thought.
“Words on a page are incomplete. The poem, the novel or the non-fiction pamphlet are finished when they are taken up and engaged with. Connection is collaborative. For words to have meaning, they have to be read.” Kae Tempest
February 12, 2024
Read my first (to my knowledge) Kae Tempest poem in September in a seminar and finally got my hands on a full collection.
I only spent about 6 months living in Lewisham but many years in London and you can hear it on the page as you read. Some of these just struck me immediately (a few posted here) and I’ll be keeping my eye out for everything else they have published.
I’ll want to revisit this before the New Year but I spent a glorious hour or so with these poems in front of the fire on a cold wet Sunday.
I only spent about 6 months living in Lewisham but many years in London and you can hear it on the page as you read. Some of these just struck me immediately (a few posted here) and I’ll be keeping my eye out for everything else they have published.
I’ll want to revisit this before the New Year but I spent a glorious hour or so with these poems in front of the fire on a cold wet Sunday.
January 6, 2024
Wow. Inhaled (again) at the muji cafe. They just get it, like so good. The lines that I think will sit on my chest for the next week, and make there way into the way I talk and write about things:
The way she saw it, it was hers to hate
Talk in abstract image, gently leaning
Our lives are hung on solid things, the washing line
I just kiss and eat breakfast
All night I lay awake with it, my want
The line in the sand is a chalk outline
It’s all been done before. We make it new
The way she saw it, it was hers to hate
Talk in abstract image, gently leaning
Our lives are hung on solid things, the washing line
I just kiss and eat breakfast
All night I lay awake with it, my want
The line in the sand is a chalk outline
It’s all been done before. We make it new
August 18, 2023
Beautiful stark emotion and impressive variation and control of form, testament to the influence of the Don.
December 26, 2023
Superb as ever - I listened to the audiobook on Spotify where you also get a 45 minute interview with Kae talking about some of the processes behind their works, which is really worth listening to.
January 12, 2025
“Let poems be the windows, not the views. / The stupid part was thinking I could choose.” There are few writers who so constantly amaze and inspire me, and Kae Tempest is absolutely one of them — their latest poetry collection, Divisble by Itself and One, is a luminous body of work about bodies, work, and so much in between: “I just want to make good art good fucking luck I just want to connect with other human beings at least I’m trying you bunch of sour pigs”, and “At last, no one is intervening. / Her body is just sound. Without meaning.” From its more visually compelling poems, like ‘Megalithic long barrow’, ‘Wind in the tall trees’, to its evocative, lyrical poems like ‘The actor dreams in character’ and ‘Do it for the joy’, this collection finds Tempest more experimental than ever, while tapping into — distilling, refining, recasting — their previous works. Love is notably palpable: “The force / Of our nature is everywhere. Of course. / It’s your words I use when I speak to the plants”; “God grant me completeness, so I can love”. There’s the opening of ‘Crush’, “I feel you like a threat”, and the striking opening and close of ‘Absurd’: “No matter who you end up with you'll end up in absurdity.“; “Why not stick it out with this insane human being, rather than dig it all up just to replant yourself in a parallel hole.” I enjoyed the flashes of hilarity amidst the sincerity (“Enjoying a well-earned pasta coma / while everything else spoils.”), and the poems that one can’t help but read as explicitly personal and confessional: “Trust me / I know what it is to be alive, but I smothered it in normal. / Threw myself into my work.” Tempest’s insistence that “If you can put up with it, life is long” rings true throughout.
February 19, 2024
I read this poetry collection – the latest by the award winning poet and spoken word performer/recording artist – due to its longlisting for the Dylan Thomas Prize, a prize for authors writing in English aged 39 and under (Thomas himself having died at that age) which is open to novels, short story collections, poetry collections and plays.
I must admit poetry is not my preferred literary medium and I found it much easier to engage with the author’s vibrant if patchy 2016 debut novel “The Bricks That Built The Houses” as I was unable to gain a purchase on far too many of the poems here:
Some extracts though from my favourite pieces:
Pride
New world order online at your convenience
I must admit poetry is not my preferred literary medium and I found it much easier to engage with the author’s vibrant if patchy 2016 debut novel “The Bricks That Built The Houses” as I was unable to gain a purchase on far too many of the poems here:
Some extracts though from my favourite pieces:
Pride
Pride by degrees. It’s relative
I’ve carried my shame
like a drunk friend dragged
through the days of my life
Damn dysphoria
On a scale of Can’t-Bear-It to Pride
I’m more proud than I was
but less proud than I like
of the beautiful thing
that we make when we make it
New world order online at your convenience
We are a collective farce. Just reward
For our suffering, Describing a meme
We saw by chance. Scrolled past when we were bored
Remembering posts like things from a dream.
Intrusive opinions. Constant impact.
So absorbing, to gaze into the stream.
Direct to skull from tablet. I THINK THAT
IT WAS ALL FORETOLD. Don't forget to send.
The vaccine's not a satanic contract.
The mark of the beast that signals the end
Will not be implanted into your wrist.
It's in your pocket already, my friend.
December 22, 2024
I am in love with Kae and everything they do. I wish I could capture the world so succinctly like they do.
I love seeing their evolution of craft, and how experimentations in form have opened up new creative possibilities, rather than stymie them. There's an assuredness to Tempest's voice, and while it doesn't have the feel of I want to eat the whole world then destroy it of their earlier works, it still punches me in exactly the same way. I see the people I love within these pages.
Kae loves the world, and I love looking at it through their eyes.
"Throw your big perfect shadow across me
and take me deep into the mouth of desire."
"But if your pride is hard
to get hold of. As fickle
as wind and so tight round
your shoulders you have
to dig deep to keep
motion, I love you. For
all your complexity.
All your sore edges.
All your torn corners."
"I press my ear against the phone to hear your lips
part and re-part. Your skin is the coming day,
your eyes last night's embers."
"I had it all inside, I strapped it on and fucked in secret. Trust me
I know what it is to be alive, but I smothered it in normal."
"My people. My beautiful people. My beautiful trans people,
natural as life.
I am.
I'm right beside you."
I love seeing their evolution of craft, and how experimentations in form have opened up new creative possibilities, rather than stymie them. There's an assuredness to Tempest's voice, and while it doesn't have the feel of I want to eat the whole world then destroy it of their earlier works, it still punches me in exactly the same way. I see the people I love within these pages.
Kae loves the world, and I love looking at it through their eyes.
"Throw your big perfect shadow across me
and take me deep into the mouth of desire."
"But if your pride is hard
to get hold of. As fickle
as wind and so tight round
your shoulders you have
to dig deep to keep
motion, I love you. For
all your complexity.
All your sore edges.
All your torn corners."
"I press my ear against the phone to hear your lips
part and re-part. Your skin is the coming day,
your eyes last night's embers."
"I had it all inside, I strapped it on and fucked in secret. Trust me
I know what it is to be alive, but I smothered it in normal."
"My people. My beautiful people. My beautiful trans people,
natural as life.
I am.
I'm right beside you."
June 14, 2023
I read Kae Tempest 's novel The Bricks That Built the Houses a while ago and it is still up there with my favourites. I also enjoy their music.
This was my first time with Tempest's poetry and I felt it much deeper than their lyrics. Perhaps because I can linger on certain lines and word choice without the music moving me on.
Beauty, pain, the mundane, the extraordinary. Hopes, expectations, reality.
I found it so personal yet also universal. A genuine wordsmith and I've been recommending Divisible by Itself and One to everyone.
Only available as audiobook here at the moment but I have ordered a hard copy because I'd like to be able to grab it to read and reread certain favourites.
I recommend the audiobook as Kae is reciting their poetry.
This was my first time with Tempest's poetry and I felt it much deeper than their lyrics. Perhaps because I can linger on certain lines and word choice without the music moving me on.
Beauty, pain, the mundane, the extraordinary. Hopes, expectations, reality.
I found it so personal yet also universal. A genuine wordsmith and I've been recommending Divisible by Itself and One to everyone.
Only available as audiobook here at the moment but I have ordered a hard copy because I'd like to be able to grab it to read and reread certain favourites.
I recommend the audiobook as Kae is reciting their poetry.
July 6, 2023
As always with poetry, some just resonated with me more than others and I can't exactly pinpoint why. The one thing that I find impressive about all of Kae Tempest's work is the nice rhythm that carries through their poetry. Even in cases where the poem itself didn't touch me as much as others, it still had a melodic flow that made it very enjoyable to read. I think my favorites were "Mountain road at midnight, Crete" and "The loop", although there were quite a few that made me underline lines like crazy and subsequently lead me to stare at my bedroom ceiling for half an hour (which is my preferred outcome for reading poetry).
June 15, 2025
I got curious to read Kae Tempest from a recommendation in All the Violet Tiaras: Queering the Greek Myths, and ended up finding this one in Edinburgh, and I'm still really happy I got it even if it wasn't for me...
I enjoyed a couple of the poems here, but mostly, while beautiful, they weren't really my style, I think it was a bit more lyrical than I enjoy... I like them a bit more connected to daily life, I think...
But it was a great addition as I continue to try and learn what poetry I like best!!!
I enjoyed a couple of the poems here, but mostly, while beautiful, they weren't really my style, I think it was a bit more lyrical than I enjoy... I like them a bit more connected to daily life, I think...
But it was a great addition as I continue to try and learn what poetry I like best!!!
September 3, 2023
Current poems on relationships, the limits of the body and being trans. Although they are vulnerable, they transcend the personal experience.
Some favourite lines:
Let poems be the jug, not what you pour.
These days I dream of just enough. No more.
About God who sits in their garden after having cast Adam and Eve into exile:
Groaning in the empty garden in a moment that lasted till now, the almighty swore they'd never live again. And the words of the oath were famine, pestilence, genocide, flood.
Could have sworn I killed those dreams
but they got up and learned to hunt.
Some favourite lines:
Let poems be the jug, not what you pour.
These days I dream of just enough. No more.
About God who sits in their garden after having cast Adam and Eve into exile:
Groaning in the empty garden in a moment that lasted till now, the almighty swore they'd never live again. And the words of the oath were famine, pestilence, genocide, flood.
Could have sworn I killed those dreams
but they got up and learned to hunt.
May 23, 2024
Just wanted to give like they gave;
Blindly, always. More than once
My words ran out, to snarls and grunts
The effort being far too grave.
What did it mean, this word Commit?
These disappearing lives? Don't leave!
Don't change or fall or want reprieve
Just stretch the mask and make it fit.
We quit the suffocating norm,
Our excavation; painful, long.
First one limb, the muscles gone
Then more, until we regained form.
Ran far enough to turn and say,
We made it out alive. We've seen
The whole lie burn. Let's build it clean
And do this thing for us, our way.
Blindly, always. More than once
My words ran out, to snarls and grunts
The effort being far too grave.
What did it mean, this word Commit?
These disappearing lives? Don't leave!
Don't change or fall or want reprieve
Just stretch the mask and make it fit.
We quit the suffocating norm,
Our excavation; painful, long.
First one limb, the muscles gone
Then more, until we regained form.
Ran far enough to turn and say,
We made it out alive. We've seen
The whole lie burn. Let's build it clean
And do this thing for us, our way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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