Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow
Published on 6. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-0350-6110-5 (ISBN)
Description
'She's one of the best poets around' - Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
Part poetry collection, part consolation, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow collects Denise Riley's moving documents of loss and grief together for the first time.
Rocked by the horrific experience of maternal grief, Denise Riley wrote the much-celebrated Say Something Back, in which the poet-philosopher contemplates the natural world and physical law, and considers what it means to invoke those who are absent. These are poems which expand our sense of human speech and what it can mean, of what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead.
These lyric poems and elegies are accompanied by the beautiful, unflinching Time Lived, Without Its Flow. Diary entries written after receiving news of her adult son's death are woven into a life portrait of loss. A ruminative post-script to these diaries follows, in which Riley examines the experience with a philosopher's precision, mapping through it a literature of consolation.
Published in a single volume for the first time, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow offers with remarkable grace and insight kind counsel to all those living in the wake of grief.
Part poetry collection, part consolation, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow collects Denise Riley's moving documents of loss and grief together for the first time.
Rocked by the horrific experience of maternal grief, Denise Riley wrote the much-celebrated Say Something Back, in which the poet-philosopher contemplates the natural world and physical law, and considers what it means to invoke those who are absent. These are poems which expand our sense of human speech and what it can mean, of what is drawn forth from us when we address our dead.
These lyric poems and elegies are accompanied by the beautiful, unflinching Time Lived, Without Its Flow. Diary entries written after receiving news of her adult son's death are woven into a life portrait of loss. A ruminative post-script to these diaries follows, in which Riley examines the experience with a philosopher's precision, mapping through it a literature of consolation.
Published in a single volume for the first time, Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow offers with remarkable grace and insight kind counsel to all those living in the wake of grief.
Reviews / Votes
She's one of the best poets around -- Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom It sometimes seems that contemporary poetry divides into two sorts - those poems that did not need to be written and those written out of necessity. Denise Riley belongs to the second category - her writing is perfectly weighted, justifies its existence. It is impossible not to want to "say something back" to each of her poems in recognition of their outstanding quality. Her voice is strong and beautiful - an imperative in itself . . . remarkable * Guardian * The best thing I've read in ages -- Max Porter, author of <i>Grief Is the Thing with Feathers </i> Denise Riley's Say Something Back shows how grief keeps a different clock and is a churning yet exhilarating (because the poems are so good) exploration of loss. Her poetry gets to the heart -- Jackie Kay, <i> Guardian </i> I have been a fan of Denise Riley's for decades, and Say Something Back shows her working at her peak in a collection that is as rewarding as it is challenging -- John Burnside, <i> Guardian </i> Denise Riley's collection Say Something Back , which includes her heart-piercing elegy to her son Jacob, 'A Part Song': the most powerful contemporary poem I've read in years -- Robert Macfarlane The best thing I've read in ages -- Sarah Perry, author of <i>The Essex Serpent</i> Riley, one of the most eloquent thinkers about our life in language, had long 'believed that thought is made in the mouth'. Suddenly, it is locked in . . . This almost unbearably crystalline essay, first published in 2012, recounts how death smashed her sense of how the world works. * The Sunday Times * She's a poet whose work . . . never fails to convince new readers with its intelligence, wit and emotion * The Times * A terrific talent -- Carol Ann Duffy, author of <i>The World's Wife</i> and former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom Her strengths are so varied: notice one quality you admire, and another follows hard behind. Riley is an enormously gifted writer -- Fiona Sampson, <i>Guardian</i> An astonishing, eloquent examination of grief, but also of stasis and disrupted time in the face of loss. This book contains far more depth and enlightenment than its slim volume suggests, as it contemplates and rages, moves and soothes. Magnificent -- Sinead Gleeson, author of<i> Constellations</i> A precise and elegant exploration of what happens to time after a grievous loss. I felt a little wiser for having read it -- Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of <i>The Last Act of Love</i> A very short book about time and loss, living and telling, that immeasurably expanded my sense of each of those things -- David Hayden,<i> TLS</i> To those of us who feared words might not be enough, Time Lived, Without Its Flow delivers its kind riposte. A manifesto for the unbroken promise of language, for a literature of consolation, and above all for empathy, it is a book about listening closely (to oneself and others), a call to the radical, ordinary act of being with: to say with your whole heart, not 'I can't imagine what you're feeling', but 'I can imagine' -- Emily Berry, author of<i> Dear Boy</i> Time Lived, Without Its Flow derives its immense power from its combination of emotional immediacy and intellectual rigour. To read it is to feel your heart breaking and your neurons firing at the same time -- Mark O'Connell, author of <i>To Be A Machine</i> A dark jewel of a book in which the mysterious reversals of a life-in-grief are laid bare in language that is both elegantly precise and courageously blunt -- Katherine Towers, author of <i>The Remedies</i> The only thing I have read that gets close to the experience of loss and the way in which it suspends our entire, usual understanding of time. A wonderful piece of work -- Simon Critchley, author of<i> Faith of the Faithless</i>More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
138 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-0350-6110-5 (9781035061105)
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.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Denise Riley
Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow
E-Book
03/2025
Picador
€15.99
Available for download
Person
Denise Riley is a critically acclaimed writer of both philosophy and poetry. She is currently Professor of the History of Ideas and of Poetry at UEA. Her visiting positions have included A.D. White Professor at Cornell University in the US, Writer in Residence at the Tate Gallery in London, and Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has taught philosophy, art history, poetics, and creative writing. She is the author of Say Something Back and lives in London.