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Under the Blue

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Under the Blue, written and read by Suzannah V. Evans.

'Breath-taking . . . Evans brings forensic observation and brave grace to turbulent waters and the infinitesimal rituals of care' NANCY CAMPBELL

'Evans hears the world around her like no one else; she paces from beauty to agony and back without missing a step' NOREEN MASUD

'Balances a hypnotically dreamy and filmic vision with a precise and unsentimental lyric voice' POLLY ATKIN
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From the multi-award-winning poet: a new collection of soaring lyricism and desire, exploring the act of care and the consequences of loving

Under the Blue is an arresting, deeply candid exploration of both the shimmering beauty of life and the realities of care.

Through a series of glittering fragmental prose poems and evocative postcards, Suzannah V. Evans has produced a kaleidoscopic meditation grounded by profound humanity and empathy – about intimacy and togetherness, sickness and pain, what can be said and what remains unsayable.

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'Catches us in the complexity of pleasure and pain that is being bodies in this world' PHOEBE POWER

'Understated, true and wise ... A poetic waterlog buoyed by the rhythms of love' ISABEL GALLEYMORE

Critics Review

Under the Blue is a collage of the quiet horrors and ecstasies that form a life. Evans is tender, subtle and fierce in her exploration of all that cannot be expressed through language but must be attempted in any case. A poignant collection of prose poems painted on postcards – again and again, we are weighed down and made weightless by the brutal, beautiful reality of caring for those we love
Poetry Book Society
Under the Blue is a breath-taking book. Each page displays the panache of a writer in their element. Suzannah V. Evans brings forensic observation and brave grace to turbulent waters and the infinitesimal rituals of care, and crafts a fierce credo of risk, rescue and radical tenderness
NANCY CAMPBELL, author of Fifty Words for Snow
A marvellous, wrenching collection. Evans hears the world around her like no one else; she paces from beauty to agony and back without missing a step
NOREEN MASUD, author of A Flat Place
Intimate and hypnotic, Under the Blue glimmers in the space between dream and reality, fear and joy. In this lyrical exploration of love, care and what it means to articulate and re-articulate these feelings as daily acts, Suzannah V. Evans offers a poetic voice that feels at once precise and fluid, bright and blue. These are poems of the body, of water and of the thrill and burden of life, and they sing out on every page
HANNAH COPLEY, T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted author of Lapwing
An extraordinary and important debut collection, powerfully assured both in its craft and in its purpose, illuminating the dailyness of care for loved ones in a careless world. The mundane and marvellous collide in the daily triumphs, terrors, joys and rage of the communal acts of unpaid care, and the particular doubleness of being a carer with experience of illness, the dual citizenship of the kingdoms of the sick and the temporarily well. Balancing a hypnotically dreamy and filmic vision with a precise and unsentimental lyric voice, this collection gave me the best kind of chills
POLLY ATKIN, author of The Company of Owls
A book of heart-breaking beauty . . . Under the Blue gives you a way of being, touch by touch, scene by scene, amidst the song, turmoil, salt and sweetness
ANTHONY V. CAPILDEO, Forward Prize-winning author of Measures of Expatriation
Under the Blue ventures into new poetic waters to document the lived experience of being a carer. On every page we find a voice that’s understated, true and wise. The result is a poetic waterlog buoyed by the rhythms of love
ISABEL GALLEYMORE, author of Significant Other
Under the Blue brims with sheer gladness for the gift of being alive, catching us in the complexity of pleasure and pain that is being bodies in this world. Written with a luminous energy that will keep you turning the pages, these poems are a precious reminder to be thankful for the small details, and to love one another with all gentleness, commitment and care
PHOEBE POWER, author of Shrines of Upper Austria
For all the weight of Evans' subjects there is a lightness of touch
Tablet
In electrifying poetic prose, Under the Blue deftly moves through exotic, domestic and pastoral environments – rockpools, cowfields, a home in Christmastime – that feel imbued with breath. Wind, water and illness flows through these poems
JOSHUA JONES, Dylan Thomas Prize and Polari Prize-shortlisted author of Local Fires
Under the Blue works on the reader as a hybrid text, written in distilled, poetic prose and structured like a poetry collection
The Alchemy Spoon
Author Suzannah V. Evans
Narrator Suzannah V. Evans
Duration 1 hours and 20 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781526677730
Format Audiobook
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Genre Poetry
Availability AU, GB, IE

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