The Book of Tides

Angela Readman

• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781911027287
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Mujeres en la poesía

The slack-tide is the worst, curled on my side

I cup a conch to one ear, as if, I may hear

a cough of men washing up on the shore.

Angela Readman's The Book of Tides is treasure trove of luscious, visceral poems that are delightfully risky, utterly thrilling and always close to the bone. Readman's poetry teems with the rare and beautiful, the dark seaweed sparkle of a particular strand of skewed folklore; here we encounter fishermen and mermaids, a man with a beard of bees, a Tattooist's daughter, Joan of Arc, and Beatrix Potter's bed – a rich swell of voices with an irresistible and peculiar power.

Salt-speckled and sea tinged, these poems possess a distinctive eye for disconcerting and uncanny details – from notes in bottles and knotted handkerchiefs to sequin fish-scales and drowned rats. To read Readman's poetry is to be simultaneously unsettled and enraptured, and to encounter witchcraft, murder, love and loss. As The Book of Tides unfolds, will you dare to put your ear to its seashell and tune into its siren song, cast yourself adrift on a its strange and alluring current?

Contents

The Book of Tides

In the Absence of Mary

Featherweight

The Museum of Water

The Morning of La Llorona

The Woman Who Could Not Say Love

The Herring Lass and the Soap

Radiography

The Fisher Daughter

The House that Wanted to be a Boat

The Aerialist’s Shopping List

The Long April of Electra

Breaking into the Convent

To Kill a Robin

My Father Snaps off Mermaids like Porn

Two Hundred Snow Geese

What the Sindy House Taught Me

When We Don’t Talk About the Weather

The Tattooist’s Daughter

The Preacher’s Son and the Beard of Bees

At Six Stone, I Think of Feeding the Birds

Kissing the Man with the Beard of Bees

Woman and Rat

Our Names in Pebbles

Circe Sings to the Pigs

The Honey Jar

The Orange I Didn’t Give the Girl Driving the Tram

Lady with a Goose on her Head

Hallelujah for 50ft Women

If I Let You Film Me…

The Religion of Mermaids

Backendish

The Sound of a Knot Being Untied

The Woman Who Could Not Say Goodbye

The Tendering

Clay Baby

Rose Petal Jelly

The Cowshed Miracles

Against Youth

Queen Victoria’s Wedding Dress

Making Love Outside of Chernobyl

Beatrix Potter’s Bed

Joan of Arc

The Woman with No Name

The Loss Adjustors

Confession of a Selkie

To Catch a Fisherman

Note in a Bottle

Fiddling the Gas

The Poet’s Last Will and Testament

Postscript to a Note in a Bottle

The Book of Tides Closes

Acknowledgements

‘If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick everyday’

– Leonard Cohen

The Book of Tides

Like that, the old lass could switch into a ship’s mast,

stood on that cliff, air wringing a swell of hips

out of her skirt. Then, she was Ma again,

dragging me through the plothery snicket,

back to the cottage. Outside tinkled and strode.

Fishermen knocked, bags of whelks at the door,

trout like rainbows dandled in raw hands.

Aye,

the woman had a knack for the wind, knew it,

whisper to gale. She got weather the way a mute

woman, married forever, spoke to her husband

without saying a word. I did not know if I’d live

my magic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Book of Tides
• In the Absence of Mary
• Featherweight
• The Museum of Water
• The Morning of La Llorona
• The Woman Who Could Not Say Love
• The Herring Lass and the Soap
• Radiography
• The Fisher Daughter
• The House that Wanted to be a Boat
• The Aerialist’s Shopping List
• The Long April of Electra
• Breaking into the Convent
• To Kill a Robin
• My Father Snaps off Mermaids like Porn
• Two Hundred Snow Geese
• What the Sindy House Taught Me
• When We Don’t Talk About the Weather
• The Tattooist’s Daughter
• The Preacher’s Son and the Beard of Bees
• At Six Stone, I Think of Feeding the Birds
• Kissing the Man with the Beard of Bees
• Woman and Rat
• Our Names in Pebbles
• Circe Sings to the Pigs
• The Honey Jar
• The Orange I Didn’t Give the Girl Driving the Tram
• Lady with a Goose on her Head
• Hallelujah for 50ft Women
• If I Let You Film Me…
• The Religion of Mermaids
• Backendish
• The Sound of a Knot Being Untied
• The Woman Who Could Not Say Goodbye
• The Tendering
• Clay Baby
• Rose Petal Jelly
• The Cowshed Miracles
• Against Youth
• Queen Victoria’s Wedding Dress
• Making Love Outside of Chernobyl
• Beatrix Potter’s Bed
• Joan of Arc
• The Woman with No Name
• The Loss Adjustors
• Confession of a Selkie
• To Catch a Fisherman
• Note in a Bottle
• Fiddling the Gas
• The Poet’s Last Will and Testament
• Postscript to a Note in a Bottle
• The Book of Tides Closes
• Acknowledgements