Broken Sleep

Intimate and truthful, the poems in Sally Read's second collection move from the very earliest and most delicate stages of life, to the many adjustments of adulthood. Always startlingly honest, the pains of closeness and separation, love and mortality are dealt with in unflinching and transforming ways. "Broken Sleep" is a cycle of poems from a mother to her baby, moving from the uncertainty and awe at the discovery of a pregnancy, through the ecstasy of early motherhood. It charts, with tenderness, the child's development from fetus in the dark, to walking, talking toddler in a bewildering and exciting world. The poems comprise a hymn and an elegy to the experience of pregnancy and early motherhood. The second part of the book, "The Glass Eye", moves swiftly into a world where loss, whether of a loved one, a breast, or simply innocence, is countered by extraordinary kinds of redemption. Whether conjuring angels, music, or lies these pieces offer a sometimes disturbing but always marvelous alternative to the unavoidable blackness behind the glass eye.

About the Author :
Sally Read was born in Suffolk in 1971. She trained and worked as a psychiatric nurse in London while completing a BA with the Open University, and went on to earn her MA at the University of South Dakota, USA. She received an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her three poetry collections with Bloodaxe are The Point of Splitting (2005), which was shortlisted for the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, Broken Sleep (2009) and The Day Hospital (2012). The Poetry Archive released her audio CD Sally Read reading from her poems in 2010. A selected poems in Italian, Punto Di Rottura, translated by Loredana Magazzeni and Andrea Sirotti, was published by La Vita Felice in 2012. Sally Read also writes articles, many of which have appeared in The Tablet, and she has recently translated the spiritual diary of the Blessed Maria Crocifissa Curcio into English for the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus. She is poet in residence at the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs, and her book Night's Bright Darkness, the story of her conversion to Catholicism, was published by Ignatius Press in 2016. She is a fellow of the Institute of Critical and Creative Writing at Birmingham City University and has a blog at www.farnearness.blogspot.it. Sally Read is based in Santa Marinella, Rome, and in Bungay, Suffolk.

Review :
Sally Read's first collection is a marvellous book, bringing together poignant and lyrical meditations on love, mortality, art, healing and the Italian landscape in poems of fine judgement and a true poet's skill. The Point of Splitting marks the debut of an accomplished writer, not only one to watch, but one to read now, for her wit, craft, and clear vision.