Inside the Wave: COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 - Softcover

Helen Dunmore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780373589 ISBN 13: 9781780373584

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2017

Synopsis

COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017
Winner of the 2017 Costa Poetry Award.

To be alive is to be inside the wave, always travelling until it breaks and is gone. These poems are concerned with the borderline between the living and the dead - the underworld and the human living world - and the exquisitely intense being of both. They possess a spare, eloquent lyricism as they explore the bliss and anguish of the voyage.

Inside the Wave, Helen Dunmore's tenth and final book of poetry, followed The Malarkey (2012), whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition. Her other books include Glad of These Times (2007), and Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), a comprehensive selection drawing on seven previous collections. Her final poem, 'Hold out your arms', written shortly before her death and not included in the first printing of Inside the Wave, was added to all subsequent printings.

About this title

Review:

'We all felt this is a modern classic; a fantastic collection, life affirming and uplifting. The poems carry powerful messages that speak to all of us.' - Wendy Holden, Chair, Costa Book of the Year

'An astonishing set of poems - a final, great achievement.'- Costa Poetry Award Judges Moniza Alvi, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Nick Wroe on Inside the Wave, winner of the 2017 Costa Poetry Award

'Inside the Wave shows us not only what it is to be alive, but what it is like to be alive and to be mortal. It is a very special book indeed.' - Moniza Alvi, one of the Costa Poetry Award judges, The Guardian (The Week in Books)

'This is a prize that celebrates "great writing, a good read and broad appeal". There is no better definition of Inside the Wave: a book that is a fitting culmination, and lasting memorial, to a remarkable life and career.' - Nick Wroe, Costa Poetry Award judge, The Guardian

'2017 saw the loss of many loved poets. Inside the Wave by the late Helen Dunmore ensures her beautiful light will continue to reach earth.' --Carol Rumens, The Observer (Poetry Books of the Year)

'The wave in this humane and visionary collection symbolises the flow of time and tide around and over individual lives... Lying down and watching the world at eye level constitutes much of what poets and novelists do and Dunmore's work in both genres is always alive with sensuous detail.' Carol Rumens, Poetry Book of the Month, The Observer

'Before her death from cancer in June, aged 64, Helen Dunmore fired one last dazzling salvo with this stunning poetry collection... The poems in Inside the Wave inhabit the twilit, liminal spaces between life and death... Their pared-down quality renders them all the more moving; their bright flashes of imagery like sunlit sea-glass on dull sand.' --Juanita Coulson, The Lady (Book of the Week)

She was - first and last - a poet. Her first collection, The Apple Fall, was published when she was 30, her last, Inside the Wave, in April this year [2017]... Her last collection is her most spare and moving. Inside the Wave is smooth as a sea pebble and liminal - poised between life and death. --Kate Kellaway, in her tribute to Helen Dunmore in The Guardian

About the Author:

Helen Dunmore (1952-2017) was a poet, novelist, short story and children's writer. Her poetry books received a Poetry Book Society Choice and Recommendations, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, and the Signal Poetry Award. Bestiary was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1997, and Inside the Wave won the 2017 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year. She won first prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 1990 with her poem 'Sisters leaving the dance', and first prize in the National Poetry Competition in 2010 with 'The Malarkey'.

After making her debut with The Apple Fall in 1983, she published all her poetry with Bloodaxe. Her earlier work is available in Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), which was followed by Glad of These Times (2007), The Malarkey (2012) and Inside the Wave (2017), her tenth and final collection.

She published twelve novels and three books of short stories with Penguin, including A Spell of Winter (1995), winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Talking to the Dead (1996), The Siege (2001), Mourning Ruby (2003), House of Orphans (2006) and The Betrayal (2010), as well as The Greatcoat (2012) with Hammer, and The Lie (2014), Exposure (2016) and Birdcage Walk (2017) with Hutchinson.

Born in Beverley, Yorkshire, she studied English at York University, and after graduating in 1973 spent two years teaching in Finland before settling in Bristol.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1780373589
• ISBN 13: 9781780373584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 72