once is Jo Slade’s seventh collection of poetry. In it she examines what it means to be a poet and an artist in these divisive times. She brings into particular focus fundamental questions about our attitudes to women and children, to the natural world, to the vulnerability of the human species. She watches and listens, at one and the same time, she sees the beauty and the dissolution of the world. The poems are, as are all forms of art, light beams across the darkness of our times.
“Once is a collection with a courage of its own. A poetry creating its own metaphysic as it comes into being, it reads ‘as if a world not walked through existed’. As I read, I found myself held as if by a sort of tangible continuum. Particularly I enjoyed the little poems, haiku-like and self-contained as cameo portraits of love – especially that between mother, grandmother and child. They reminded me as I read of my own vulnerable human being and led me back to an earth familiar from the cradle to the grave, from bathtime to the laying-out of the beloved dead. I love the book. I never felt penned in by it. In a world where, from podcast to blog, no one stops talking, it is a huge achievement to shape the silence with as few words. Once is a body of work by a poet who knows that, as resort and resource, the earth is nothing less than ours to look after or to lose.”
Gillian Allnutt
Poet and author of nine poetry collections. Recipient of The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2016
“This is a book that swells from within like stems and flowers. They demonstrate the survival of the lightest. You want to put them in a jar and gently move them until the shadows blacken the edges. They are knowing, experienced, both mother and child nourished in the same water. The clouds are far enough away to shelter them all but close enough to know they are nearly air, like pleasure, best.”
Fanny Howe
Poet, novelist, filmmaker, author of over thirty books. Recipient of many awards and distinctions
