buythebook
Mug Without a Handle, Life after loss of a long-term partner
80pps £10 plus £2 postage and packing.
ISBN 978-1-9161321-0-8
This collection brings together 53 of the many poems I have written since my husband died. They take you on my journey in five sections: Setting Out; The Sadness; Adjusting; Strategies; Going Forward.
Reviews
‘What a fine collection.’
‘The loss of a partner is such a lonely business. Often there’s no one to talk to, no one who really begins to understand. These poems chart the moment and the early days after the loss and the moves towards a resolution so well, so accessibly and honestly. I am honoured to be associated with it.’
‘It won’t be just the bereaved who buy your book: it will be friends of the bereaved, people who sympathise but don’t know what to say, how to put their feelings into words. Not everyone is a poet.’
R V Bailey, partner of the late great U A Fanthorpe (awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry), to both of whom the book is dedicated.
‘I really appreciate the way you’ve framed your poems to touch others who are grieving. Poetry is one of the few ways of speaking directly to our emotions. It is an act of kindness and generosity to reach out to us the way you’re doing. And to those who haven’t yet experienced grief, to get a sense of what it’s like in a way they might understand.’
Laurie Rostholder, psychotherapist and grief group facilitator
‘My immediate reaction was “sentimental, simplistic tosh”. But I read further and the more I read, the more I think I understood what you are saying. You are condensing common, everyday thoughts, feelings, fears and experiences of bereavement into a simple, sparse and accessible form. I think there is something beautiful about that.’
T.T.