Terms and Conditions

By Tania Hershman

Tania Hershman's debut poetry collection, Terms and Conditions, urges us to consider all the possibilities, and to read life's small print before signing on the dotted line. These measured poems bring their stoical approach to the uncertain business of our daily lives – and ask us to consider what could happen if we were to bend or break the rules, step beyond the boundaries and challenge the narrative.

In feats of imagination and leaps of probability, falling simply becomes flying, a baby sagely collects data, and even the evidence often leads us astray. In between this, Hershman's precise poetry elegantly balances the known, unknown and unknowable matter of existence, love and happiness, weighing the atoms of each, finding just the exact words that will draw up the perfect contract of ideas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911027355

Tania Hershman

Tania Hershman's second poetry collection, Still Life With Octopus, will be published by Nine Arches Press in July 2022 and her debut novel, Go On, by Broken Sleep Books in Oct 2022. Her poetry pamphlet, How High Did She Fly, was joint winner of Live Canon's 2019 Poetry Pamphlet Competition and her hybrid particle-physics-inspired book 'and what if we were all allowed to disappear' was published by Guillemot Press in March 2020. Tania is also the author of a poetry collection, a poetry chapbook and three short story collections, and co-author of Writing Short Stories: A Writers' & Artists' Companion (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is co-creator of the @OnThisDayShe Twitter account, co-author of the On This Day She book (John Blake, 2021), and has a PhD in creative writing inspired by particle physics. www.taniahershman.com

Book preview

Baby

for Helen

Baby travels

trains, collecting

faces. (Baby may seem

carried, but is, in fact,

directing.) Baby takes in

all ages, colours,

male, female,

other. Baby understands

the need for data.

Baby’s favourite

is the oldest: its valleys,

shades and loose-pinned

edges. When Baby is removed

there are thoughts

of screaming. Instead

Baby scrolls through

images amassed. One day,

thinks Baby, I will not be

so smooth, so new. Let me

be old, prays Baby. Let me not

be carried. Let me wait

alone on dark platforms,

knowing and not knowing where

or why I’m going.

1 & 2

1.

Catch me, appled, love, oh catch me. Dimpled, I am sweeter, loves of honey, men and ministries. You talk me, peached; I sink. And sinking, trip. I fly. Summon me troops, warn me whispered, take me longing, fighting, sleepless.

2.

Night will come and then the night will come and then the rain. The night comes, rained, and you are more night to my rain, darkened we are only shuttered, and after dark. And after.

Advice for the traveller

Fall, if possible

within an hour of your arrival

in any new city. Fall well

on knees and hands, in public,

make sure you are seen. Bleeding

is optional. If someone immediately

lifts you without pausing

his mobile conversation, you will know

this is a place worth staying in. Limp

to the nearest park, sit and watch

locals by a fountain, dozing, kissing,

walking dogs. Do not rush. If you