Tuesday 3 April 2012

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.
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

5 comments:

  1. Thanks so much, Vanessa. We are a mutual admiration society today but I'm happy for that - after all, we met through liking each other's work in the first place! Can't tell you how pleased I am that you liked the poems.

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  2. We are, and I am glad. And I do, and I am glad for that too!

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  3. Mother? Just to confirm, this one works on Dads, too. Stopped me in my tracks when I read it. Like you say, it's a stunning collection.

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  4. I am glad it works on Dads too! The things we do to our kids, eh? Thanks Neil.

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  5. So much stirring truth in this poem! Full of sweetness and candour and stick hands.

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