Synopsis
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.
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About the Author
Denise Riley is a critically acclaimed writer of both philosophy and poetry. She is currently Professor of the History of Ideas and of Poetry at UEA. Her visiting positions have included A.D. White Professor at Cornell University in the US, Writer in Residence at the Tate Gallery in London, and Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck College in the University of London. She has taught philosophy, art history, poetics, and creative writing. Denise Riley lives in London.
Review
Shortlisted for the 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
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Say Something Back
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paperback. Condition: Very Good. Say Something Back This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9781447270379
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Say Something Back
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Picador, London, 2016
ISBN 10: 1447270371
ISBN 13: 9781447270379
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Say Something Back
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Seller: WorldofBooks, Goring-By-Sea, WS, United Kingdom
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Say Something Back will allow readers to see just why the name of Denise Riley has been held in such high regard by her fellow poets for so long. The book reproduces A Part Song, a profoundly moving document of grieving and loss, and one of the most widely admired long poems of recent years. Elsewhere these poems become a space for contemplation of the natural world and of physical law, and for the deep consideration of what it is to invoke those who are absent. But finally, they extend our sense of what the act of human speech can mean - and especially what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead. Lyric, intimate, acidly witty, unflinchingly brave, Say Something Back is a deeply moving book by one of our finest poets, and one destined to introduce Riley's name to a wide new readership. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR007654481
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paperback. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9781447270379
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Paperback. Condition: Good. Welcome to Say Something Back (2016) by Denise Riley (Picador Poetry), ISBN 9781447270379 ? a poetry collection with a title that sounds like a cheeky dare in an argument, until you realise it?s also the most heartbreaking request imaginable: please, answer me. Because this is Riley writing out of grief, and the ?something back? isn?t witty repartee. It?s the impossible reply from someone who can?t reply. The book circles loss with a mind that is fiercely intelligent and a voice that refuses to turn emotion into easy sentiment. If you?re looking for soft-focus consolations, this isn?t that. If you want language that tells the truth about grief ? its blankness, its sudden swerves, its odd practicality, its surreal everydayness ? then this book is devastatingly good company. Riley?s style is a strange, powerful mix: plainspoken at first glance, but edged with philosophical precision. She can write a line that feels like it?s just describing an ordinary moment, and then you reread it and realise it has shifted the floor under your feet. There?s a constant tension between the mind trying to make sense of what happened and the reality that grief doesn?t ?make sense? so much as happen , repeatedly, in waves, in interruptions, in flashes of memory that arrive without warning and then refuse to leave. The irony is that the poems often sound conversational, even casual ? but the craft is exact. Riley knows how to let silence into the page. She knows how to stop a poem mid-thought so the reader feels the absence. She knows how to make the ordinary world look suddenly alien, as it does after a death: the kettle still boils, the bus still comes, people still talk nonsense, and yet everything is fundamentally altered. The poems don?t perform grief. They inhabit it. There?s also a sharpness here ? a refusal to let language become ?beautiful? in the way grief-writing is sometimes expected to be. Riley can be funny, too, in that bleak, human way that shows up in the middle of pain, when you notice something absurd and it?s either laugh or collapse. The book?s power is that it doesn?t tidy the experience. It doesn?t reach for a neat ending. It keeps faith with the truth: that grief is ongoing, and that words can both fail and matter at the same time. Condition: Good , meaning this copy has been read and handled ? which makes sense. People don?t usually buy Riley to leave untouched on a shelf like a decorative object. This is the kind of book you pick up, put down, carry around, return to. Expect a little honest wear, but it?s still completely ready to do what it does best: offer language that?s rigorous, raw, and strangely clarifying. Perfect for: readers who want grief written without cliché, lovers of modern poetry with philosophical bite, anyone who values precision over sentiment, and people who understand that sometimes the bravest thing a poem can do is tell the truth plainly. Sold by Crappy Old Books , naturally ? because where else would a book this quietly fierce end up, if not waiting for the next reader to open it and find a voice that doesn?t pretend to fix anything, but still manages to speak into the silence. Seller Inventory # 5491
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