Say Something Back and Time Lived, Without Its Flow
06 March 2025
Imprint: Picador
Synopsis
‘She’s one of the best poets around’ – Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
Part poetry collection, part consolation, Say Something Back & Time Lived, Without Its Flow collects Denise Riley’s moving documents of loss and grief together for the first time.
Rocked by the horrific experience of maternal grief, Denise Riley wrote the much-celebrated Say Something Back, in which...
Details
06 March 2025
192 pages
9781035061174
Imprint: Picador
Reviews
She’s one of the best poets aroundSimon Armitage, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
It 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 . . . remarkableGuardian
The best thing I've read in agesMax 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 heartJackie Kay, Guardian