Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow

She’s one of the best poets around – Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of the United KingdomIt sometimes seems that contemporary poetry divides into two sorts - those poems that did not need to be written and those written out of necessity. Denise Riley belongs to the second category - her writing is perfectly weighted, justifies its existence. It is impossible not to want to “say something back” to each of her poems in recognition of their outstanding quality. Her voice is strong and beautiful - an imperative in itself … remarkable * Guardian *The best thing I’ve read in ages – Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers Denise Riley’s Say Something Back shows how grief keeps a different clock and is a churning yet exhilarating (because the poems are so good) exploration of loss. Her poetry gets to the heart – Jackie Kay, Guardian I have been a fan of Denise Riley’s for decades, and Say Something Back shows her working at her peak in a collection that is as rewarding as it is challenging – John Burnside, Guardian Denise Riley’s collection Say Something Back , which includes her heart-piercing elegy to her son Jacob, ‘A Part Song’: the most powerful contemporary poem I’ve read in years – Robert MacfarlaneThe best thing I’ve read in ages – Sarah Perry, author of The Essex SerpentRiley, one of the most eloquent thinkers about our life in language, had long ‘believed that thought is made in the mouth’. Suddenly, it is locked in … This almost unbearably crystalline essay, first published in 2012, recounts how death smashed her sense of how the world works. * The Sunday Times *She’s a poet whose work … never fails to convince new readers with its intelligence, wit and emotion * The Times *A terrific talent – Carol Ann Duffy, author of The World’s Wife and former Poet Laureate of the United KingdomHer strengths are so varied: notice one quality you admire, and another follows hard behind. Riley is an enormously gifted writer – Fiona Sampson, GuardianAn astonishing, eloquent examination of grief, but also of stasis and disrupted time in the face of loss. This book contains far more depth and enlightenment than its slim volume suggests, as it contemplates and rages, moves and soothes. Magnificent – Sinéad Gleeson, author of ConstellationsA precise and elegant exploration of what happens to time after a grievous loss. I felt a little wiser for having read it – Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of LoveA very short book about time and loss, living and telling, that immeasurably expanded my sense of each of those things – David Hayden, TLSTo those of us who feared words might not be enough, Time Lived, Without Its Flow delivers its kind riposte. A manifesto for the unbroken promise of language, for a literature of consolation, and above all for empathy, it is a book about listening closely (to oneself and others), a call to the radical, ordinary act of being with: to say with your whole heart, not ‘I can’t imagine what you’re feeling’, but ‘I can imagine’ – Emily Berry, author of Dear BoyTime Lived, Without Its Flow derives its immense power from its combination of emotional immediacy and intellectual rigour. To read it is to feel your heart breaking and your neurons firing at the same time – Mark O’Connell, author of To Be A MachineA dark jewel of a book in which the mysterious reversals of a life-in-grief are laid bare in language that is both elegantly precise and courageously blunt – Katherine Towers, author of The RemediesThe only thing I have read that gets close to the experience of loss and the way in which it suspends our entire, usual understanding of time. A wonderful piece of work – Simon Critchley, author of Faith of the Faithless

Denise Riley is a critically acclaimed writer of both philosophy and poetry. She is currently Professor of the History of Ideas and of Poetry at UEA. Her visiting positions have included A.D. White Professor at Cornell University in the US, Writer in Residence at the Tate Gallery in London, and Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has taught philosophy, art history, poetics, and creative writing. She is the author of Say Something Back and lives in London.