Hard Drive

Reviews / Votes

'This book is nothing less than Stephenson's loving coronach for Hartman, the speaker of the poems guiding us through the Tartarean territory of grief like a modern-day and at times playful Virgil... Add to this Stephenson's infectious love of words and wordplay and the sound-systems they generate. Each poem is stamped with the hallmark of an incurable logophile.'

Richie McCafferey, The Friday Poem 'So often, we see the poet turning away from his subject, but allowing us to see what he's turning from. This is the power of the work and the skill of the poet... It's rare for a work of elegy to achieve such capaciousness and to retain such power.'

Stephen Sexton, Irish Times 'On offer is a masterclass in writing and playing with form - and the poems are playful and humorous as well as brave, heart-stoppingly sad, and sure-footedly accomplished.'

Diana Cant, The Alchemy Spoon 'Hard Drive is not an elegy, or even a clutch of elegies, so much as an attack on grief as a negative signifier of hopelessness.... almost defiant in its determination not to be overwhelmed - or silenced - by the rituals surrounding death.'

?Nigel Jarrett, Acumen 'This is a heart-stopping debut of real emotional force and poetic intelligence. Paul Stephenson approaches the elegy through a kaleidoscopic, inventive, and genuinely moving use of form. The disorientating world of grief is captured with a blade-like precision, and yet Hard Drive is also full of hard-won light. Stephenson looks death in the eyes, and holds his nerve like few others.'

Senn Hewitt 'Like Douglas Dunn's Elegies, Hard Drive is a masterpiece of love and grief. A brilliant and innovative formal poet, Paul Stephenson here applies his great gifts, with heart-breaking clarity and bravery, to the most unfaceable of subjects. The result is poetry of great impact and generosity which, by looking unblinkingly at every aspect of grief, allows us to know our own. The collection is a beautiful hymn to the human capacity for love and, like all great poetry, makes us feel less alone.'

Jonathan Edwards 'Paul Stephenson's debut collection is a wonder. He engages with the subject of grief with wit, intelligence and tenderness - and has imbued so much life and colour into the memory of someone who has passed. This is poetry for anyone who has ever lost someone. Warm and touching, this is poetry that celebrates and mourns those deep connections that we make in life.'

Niall Campbell 'Bereavement is the saddest club to which to belong, the saddest territory to annexe. No one is ever prepared for stepping through this portal of loss. These meticulous and attuned poems spare neither reader nor the poet, nor should they. This collection is a stoic and grounded narrative telling of deep-rooted love and loss, of witness and grief. Grief is cast here as praise and loving appraisal upon the death of a life partner. With mordant and exact wit, with compassion and insight, this poet turns a wry and observing eye and sensibility upon regions of fathomless loss. Formally varied, adept in their imaginal reach, the poems honour life at every juncture, even as they mourn a life and a world thrown into sharp focus by the pitiless light shed by death. Equipoise is achieved throughout between personal and official dimensions (these booby-trapped with forms and documentations) of a death. Paul Stephenson brings all the tender mechanisms of language to sustain the weight of grief: this is an extraordinarily moving and accomplished collection which I know will command the attention it so richly warrants.'

Penelope Shuttle