The Room Between Us

Reviews / Votes

'In the title poem of in The Room Between Us, Denise Saul strikes her minimalist, eerie unforgettable note. A true stylist, Saul is somehow both delicate and bold, her prose poems studied, her lines impeccable. [...] As in a fairytale, language is power and sometimes withholding is the only power left to the patient, "The women hid their tongues when men did not listen to them . . ." Like Lilith in Eden, Saul doesn't name like a coloniser, she listens, her silences are powerful.'
Martina Evans, The Irish Times 'The book explores the ways families go on interacting with each other when language fails, collapses or is rendered insufficient. [...] As the collection develops, we become aware of how bodily agency, a looming sense of frustration and hope, all work together to complicate individualism. [...] Silence is part of the caregiving experience. The gaps or spaces between lines, horizontally and vertically, are used to build boundaries between body and language. Some poems in the collection follow other experiences of loss: the death of a parent and sibling. In The Room Between Us, what is said and unsaid also invokes a close connection with nature and sound.'Poetry Book Society Summer Bulletin 'The relationship between a carer and a sick person can be one of the most intimate of our lives; The Room Between Us encourages us to consider how language transforms a personal experience into a universal one.'
SK Grout, The Alchemy Spoon 'Denise Saul's The Room Between Us is, among
many things, a liminal space. Rather than simply
recreating the four walls of her mother's care home
room, and then adorning them with lyric and
imagery, Saul conjures a boundlessly expansive
territory that imagines the gardens, sitting rooms,
and attics of the mind.'
Ariana Benson, Magma Poetry 'Experimental in its use of voice, ellipsis and elegiac prose poetry, The Room Between Us offers a poignant narrative of love and grief, of speech recovery and of silence, capturing the unspeakable and inconsolable across physical, temporal and emotional spaces.'


Jennifer Wong, The Poetry Review 'In Denise Saul's The Room Between Us, "room" becomes a metaphor for the physical four walls in which carer and cared for are contained... serious illness can be a period when time appears to slow down and all the tiny and previously unconsidered details of life: sights, sounds smells become increasingly intensified. Capturing this in unsentimental language is what makes this collection so compelling.' Susan Jane Sims, ARTEMISpoetry 'Family and sickness are also at the heart of Denise Saul's The Room Between Us... A numbed blankness is what gives these poems their poignancy.' Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph 'Denise [Saul] rewrites the narrative for women in mourning... ultimately, Saul's collection is a reclamation that makes time for mundanity and complexity.' Holly Moberley 'Beyond the literal, there is also magic, brightness and colour in these poems... Saul's style is condensed and thoughtful; a reader may sense loss and emotive power, and may find themselves engaging with a poem after it has ended... a beautiful collection, which is layered and imagistic in its interpretation of deeply personal experience.' Maria Taylor, Under the Radar 'The Room Between Us is energetic but delicate, covering issues of care, family love, dread, and reflection in a very personal and contemporary way.' Lauren-Marie Kennedy, Dundee University Review of the Arts