The Long Beds
Published on 30. July 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
80 pages
978-1-78410-967-7 (ISBN)
Description
A Poetry Book Society Autumn 2020 Recommendation
The Long Beds explores the cell-like containment of the small hours when the body has no estate but its bed, while - waking or dreaming - the mind sets out on its travels, often in the realms of an old life, cherished items or relinquished connections. Central to the poems' imagery is the presence of a bedstead that has survived a bombing raid, protecting only what was bundled underneath it. In painterly language Kate Miller also trains her eye and ear outwards on grand, impersonal scenes: London at dawn, riverbanks and docks, the corridors of a great hospital: to uncover fogged experience and restore colour to memory. Her poems prod us awake at first light and release us into the morning.
The Long Beds explores the cell-like containment of the small hours when the body has no estate but its bed, while - waking or dreaming - the mind sets out on its travels, often in the realms of an old life, cherished items or relinquished connections. Central to the poems' imagery is the presence of a bedstead that has survived a bombing raid, protecting only what was bundled underneath it. In painterly language Kate Miller also trains her eye and ear outwards on grand, impersonal scenes: London at dawn, riverbanks and docks, the corridors of a great hospital: to uncover fogged experience and restore colour to memory. Her poems prod us awake at first light and release us into the morning.
Reviews / Votes
'The Long Beds is a sensuous study of light and optics which showcases Miller's ability to imbue even the shortest of verses with a cross disciplinary visual aesthetic.'Sarah-Jean Zubair, Poetry Review 'Beneath the surface of even the seemingly safest of poems, there is something lurking, almost as in old folk tales, a danger or a disquiet which is never far away [...] collection. It's a collection which is always shifting its voice, its gaze, its locations. Almost like a riptide, the sleeping and waking worlds pulling in different directions, these are the poems which come in between, which rise up to the surface.'
Andrew McMillian, PBS Autumn Bulletin
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 213 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
113 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-967-7 (9781784109677)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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Other editions
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Person
Kate Miller is an award-winning poet, recipient of the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Prize in 2008. Her book The Observances (2015) was shortlisted for the Costa and Michael Murphy Prizes and won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for First Collection. Trained in Art History and Fine Art, her teaching career was enlivened by creative collaborations, performances and site-specific installations. Events she devised for the Hayward Gallery focussed on light and colour on the Thames which later led to the 2016 commission to celebrate Waterloo Bridge, included here. As a writer, and in her doctoral research, she examines perceptions of the shoreline of rivers and beaches, of what is cast up and can be reclaimed, bringing history and memory to a sense of place. She lives in South London and on the Isle of Oxney with her family. Photo credit: Alison Romanczuk