Alas
Will be published approx. on 25. March 2027
Book
Paperback/Softback
128 pages
978-1-78037-806-0 (ISBN)
Description
A call from a group of bones found in a long-buried well in Norwich prompts Joanne Limburg to begin this exploration of the complex relationship between her ancestral past and her lived present. This takes her across time, from contemporary Britain back to the Europe of the Crusades and forward to the 1905 Aliens Act; across borders, from the birthplace of one grandmother in Ukraine to the other's in Norwich, from the Pale of Settlement to the Port of Grimsby, and from Babylon to Bethnal Green. The scale of the enquiry is also constantly shifting, taking in both the microscopic barleytwists of a genome and the nightmarish cycles of history which have come to shape them. Using the acrostic form of the Hebrew Book of Lamentations as a twenty-two-line template, Limburg brings her own voice into dialogue with two very different choruses, one made up of collaged lines taken from texts by gentiles on Jews, and the other imagined as the collective voice of the Bones, who understand that mourning should always come with self-examination, and that any given distance 'must be measured before it can be felt'.
'...we speak Bone, and your own bones. Explain us.'
'...we speak Bone, and your own bones. Explain us.'
Reviews / Votes
Her unflinching honesty and compelling subject matter offer much to savour in this collection -- Suzannah V. Evans * Times Literary Supplement [on The Autistic Alice] * Joanne Limburg's The Oxygen Man is an honest, difficult lurch through the aftermath of the suicide of her brother... This pamphlet expresses a "life goes on" sensibility alongside a grappling with true grief.' -- Rachael Allen * Poetry London * This moving collection delves into the death of Limburg's brother, then her own experience growing up with undiagnosed Asperger's... The Autistic Alice is a touching insight into Limburg's experiences of both grief and neurodivergence, and demonstrates the powerful way poetry can be used to explore those themes -- Oxford Poetry Library (Book of the Week)More details
Edition
Paperback original
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-806-0 (9781780378060)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Joanne Limburg was born in 1970 in London. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1998 and published her first collection, Femenismo, with Bloodaxe in 2000. Since then, there have been two further collections: Paraphernalia (2007), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Autistic Alice (2017). Her fourth book of poetry, the sequence Alas, is published by Bloodaxe in 2027.
Her other work includes the non-fiction books The Woman Who Thought Too Much, Small Pieces and Letters to My Weird Sisters, as well as the novel A Want of Kindness, all of which have been published by Atlantic Books. She has also produced a collection of poetry for children, Bookside Down, with Salt Publishing.
Joanne Limburg received her PhD in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London in 2017. She now teaches at the University of Cambridge Centre for Professional and Continuing Education. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Her other work includes the non-fiction books The Woman Who Thought Too Much, Small Pieces and Letters to My Weird Sisters, as well as the novel A Want of Kindness, all of which have been published by Atlantic Books. She has also produced a collection of poetry for children, Bookside Down, with Salt Publishing.
Joanne Limburg received her PhD in Creative Writing from Kingston University, London in 2017. She now teaches at the University of Cambridge Centre for Professional and Continuing Education. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.