The Room Between Us Synopsis
Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022.
A PBS Recommendation Summer 2022.
In her debut collection, Denise Saul explores family and identity as she tells the story of a mother's illness and subsequent aphasia, and a daughter's ongoing role as carer. At the heart of their relationship is an awareness of the inadequacies of language to name painful experiences as together they start to know the world afresh. Deeply affecting, the book finds a space for both the extraordinary and the ordinary, balancing all that is between. Such betweenness creates a space to explore wider dynamics of power, and the epiphanies and aftershocks of ongoing loss.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781800854857 |
| Publication date: |
1st April 2022 |
| Author: |
Denise Saul |
| Publisher: |
Liverpool University Press |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
64 pages |
| Series: |
Pavilion Poetry |
| Primary Genre |
Poetry
|
| Other Genres: |
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Denise Saul Press Reviews
'With the intent gaze and bold grace of the lover and mystic, Denise Saul reveals the beauty and bravery inherent in the humblest everyday objects and actions. These vital poems address a fundamental enigma of human experience - how words bring order to the chaos of the cosmos, and the surreal shapes and unfathomable lacunas the world assumes when language goes into hiding. The Room Between Us is a devastating debut collection and a profound lesson in the subtle art of listening.' - Nancy Campbell
'Denise Saul's book The Room Between Us is an in depth examination of different forms of care; care for the unwell and also self care. All told with an underlying relationship to mortality and all its reflection, rumination, regret, and fevered dream in the cared for, as well as in the carer. A commanding book on illness, survival and life that speaks directly to the current times we all now live in.' - Roger Robinson
'An achingly tender debut, a rare gem of a book. Each of these lines contains essential grains helping us to deepen our understanding and teach us so much about complicated love.' - Mona Arshi
'Denise Saul's The Room Between Us is, among many things, a liminal space. Rather than simply recreating the four walls of her mother's care home room, and then adorning them with lyric and imagery, Saul conjures a boundlessly expansive territory that imagines the gardens, sitting rooms, and attics of the mind.' - Ariana Benson, Magma Poetry
About Denise Saul
Denise is the author of two pamphlets. White Narcissi (Flipped Eye Publishing) was Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and House of Blue (Rack Press) was PBS Pamphlet Recommendation. She is the recipient of Poetry Society's Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and Fellow of The Complete Works. Denise holds a PhD in Creative Writing (poetry) from University of Roehampton. She was awarded Arts Council England's Grant for the Arts Award, for the delivery of her video poem collaborative project, Silent Room: A Journey of Language.
More About Denise Saul
