Description
Book SynopsisA brilliant collection that explores the frailties, perils and joys of love in all its guises. Clare Best's carefully observed, memorable and formally daring poems deal with a wide range of themes, including the intimacy of domestic situations, the rights of women in our society, and the pressing need to respect and learn from the natural world.
Trade ReviewBeyond the Gate is rooted in a woman's right to walk through streets and forests, through her own story. Clare Best plays compelling, original games with form. Her voice is fired by precision and observation, seared with a questioning wit. - Robert Hamberger;Shifting between the intimacy of the domestic space and a deep connection with the natural world, Best shows us beauty laced with danger, darkness, flashes of fear.This exploration of love and loss considers how we hold and carry our memories, how far ahead we dare to look. - Rebecca Goss;Clare Best writes with scruple and clarity, listening always for the unsaid and the unsayable, watching for the passage of flame into darkness. - Michael Hulse
Table of ContentsContents Woods, Chalk, Glass A heron in a poem might seem a cliche 5 Lark walk, February 6 Watering hole 7 Clem, at six, 8 Googling < long-tailed tit > in November 9 Still life with lemon 10 Browsing at my desk, May 2020 12 In Markstakes Wood 13 beyond the gate 14 By Night At WH Smith, Brighton Station 19 The pools at Glyndebourne 20 Once my home 22 Using Greenwood's Large-Scale Map of the County of Suffolk (1825) to find my friend's house 23 Portent 24 Hard hat 25 Rising in the night, in summer 26 My son's first leather boots 27 St Lucy's Day, 4.15 pm 28 Last thing 29 Cinder Path Salting 33 After your procedure 38 On this day 39 What do we know? 40 The words 41 By Water Three poems about fog 45 In the well-house, December 46 Book of water 47 Dewpond 48 Cart pond 49 Geological section 50 salt works 51 Field notes, Horsmonden furnace pond 52 Water spirit 54 Lecanomancy 56 Flight Path Return to Lago Maggiore, March 2022 59 Of seasons 60 T-Junction 61 A14 62 It was always my head 63 Burning 64 Late fig 66 I'm writing 67 Self-portrait as boundary oak 68 My possible deaths 69 Flowers, 70 Wake 71 Crossing the Styx in the Quiet Carriage 72 Epitaph 73
