Low

By Chrissy Williams

This new collection from one of Britain's most innovative poets is an exploration of identity in the face of loss. At its heart is a series of poems about the desolation of miscarriage. These poems try to understand the many different means we use to come closer to articulating, and avoiding, experience. Drawing on the language of comedy, improvisation, drag and clown, Low interrogates humour’s role in enacting the possibility of change. A thought-provoking, irreverent and challenging book, Low exemplifies Chrissy Williams' ability to find 'seriousness in the apparently trivial and ephemeral' (Poetry Review). Chrissy Williams' first collection Bear (Bloodaxe) was one of The Telegraph's 50 Best Books of the Year in 2017. She has also published several pamphlets, one of which was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award. Low is her second full-length collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: May 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781780375656

Book preview

CHRISSY WILLIAMS

LOW

This new collection from one of Britain’s most innovative poets is an exploration of identity in the face of loss. At its heart is a series of poems about the desolation of miscarriage. These poems try to understand the many different means we use to come closer to articulating, and avoiding, experience. Drawing on the language of comedy, improvisation, drag and clown, Low interrogates humour’s role in enacting the possibility of change. A thought-provoking, irreverent and challenging book, Low exemplifies Chrissy Williams’ ability to find ‘seriousness in the apparently trivial and ephemeral’ (Poetry Review).

Chrissy Williams’ first collection Bear (Bloodaxe) was one of The Telegraph’s 50 Best Books of the Year in 2017. She has also published several pamphlets, one of which was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award. Low is her second full-length collection.

‘In spite of its almost absurdist character and apparent playfulness, [Bear] is a collection of poems that deal with all that is most serious in human life.’ – Annie Freud

‘Chrissy Williams is opening a new space for British experimental poetry…with its generosity towards the reader via a light touch and warm experimentalism.’ – Marcus Slease, Shearsman

Cover artwork: Tom Humberstone

www.tomhumberstone.com

CHRISSY WILLIAMS

LOW

for Kieron

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the editors of the following publications, in which some of these poems were previous published: Poetry, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, The Pussy Parlour, The Rialto, Fuselit and Long Poem Magazine, as well as Tears in the Fence, Copper Nickel and Where Rockets Burn Through (Penned in the Margins 2012), in which some early extracts from ‘LIEBE’ first appeared under different titles.

Thank you to the commissioners of the following events and projects, for which some of these poems were originally created: Poetry for Sonic Youth,