At Sarah's

Today, the paperback party drops in at Sarah Salway’s where many things are revealed. Including my beginnings as a long lost child of the queen, my early writing career with an as-yet-undiscovered newspaper in the 1950s, and my hankering after saxophones...

But I am very pleased to be able to tell you about this lovely lady’s latest - You Do Not Need Another Self Help Book. Already a very gifted novelist, short story writer, lover of interesting sheds and benches, and this years Canterbury Laureate among many other things - Sarah has published her first poetry collection with Pindrop Press. It is heart-stopping stuff. 

Her work leaves me slightly breathless, in the best way possible - breathless with the shock of recognition, as well as admiration. But don’t listen to me - what do I know? Here’s Philip Gross’s glowing endorsement:

‘Subtly angled glimpses of love, sex, marriage, which reveal them as they really are: matters of life and death. There’s a quiet sizzling underneath the surface of these poems, which can make you smile and wince at the same time.’

Here is one of my favourite poems, reproduced with permission. I defy any writer who is also a mother, not to be shaken gently - or not so gently - by this:

The Interruption

For Lia

When I tell my daughter I’m working

she nods, pulls her chair right up 

to mine, elbows out, breath hot

with cheese and onion crisps.

She chooses a red pencil, starts 

chewing, sighs over her blank paper, 

tells me to shush. She draws us, stick

mother holding stick daughter’s hand.

Look, she says. I try to concentrate

on my work but she’s learnt

from me too well. Really look.

Clumsy fingers twist my hair 

until we fight. I say she has to go now,

to let me get on with Mummy’s work.

Outside she sits so close to the door,

I hear every rustle, every sigh so loud

that the note pushed under my door

comes like a white flag. Dear Mummy,

my daughter writes. This is me.

And here, you can hear Sarah reading this poem. 

You Do Not Need Another Self Help Book can be bought from the usual suspects - but it might be nice to buy it from the publisher: Pindrop Press