Language Animal: From the Winner of the PEN Heaney Prize
Apr 2027 · Pan Macmillan
Ebook
128
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
infoThis book will become available on April 15, 2027. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
The second poetry collection from acclaimed poet Susannah Dickey, winner of the PEN Heaney Prize.
How do we communicate the hopefulness of new love in a dying world?
A young woman, dining alone in a Paris bistro while awaiting the arrival of her lover – confronts her dish of calf’s head with winter berries and wonders, where is the neck? Where, these poems go on to ask, is the profound disconnect that has led us to our current state, apparent custodians of a world we have destroyed and of other lives we have subjugated and extinguished.
In Language Animal, the speaker attempts to narrate her experiences of a moribund planet alongside the intoxicating and solipsistic bliss of romantic feeling. In poems that traverse three different European spaces – Paris, the Greek island of Hydra, and Prague – and confront three different instances of non-human disenfranchisement – a calf’s head on a menu, crab meat linguine, a dead horse statue – the poet scrabbles for a different way of thinking that might permit, or change, her two, seemingly paradoxical ideas: that we, as a species, are not so special, and that she, as a lover, is.
'A poet of tremendous imaginative range, artistic vision, and accomplishment' – Kayo Chingonyi, author of A Blood Condition
How do we communicate the hopefulness of new love in a dying world?
A young woman, dining alone in a Paris bistro while awaiting the arrival of her lover – confronts her dish of calf’s head with winter berries and wonders, where is the neck? Where, these poems go on to ask, is the profound disconnect that has led us to our current state, apparent custodians of a world we have destroyed and of other lives we have subjugated and extinguished.
In Language Animal, the speaker attempts to narrate her experiences of a moribund planet alongside the intoxicating and solipsistic bliss of romantic feeling. In poems that traverse three different European spaces – Paris, the Greek island of Hydra, and Prague – and confront three different instances of non-human disenfranchisement – a calf’s head on a menu, crab meat linguine, a dead horse statue – the poet scrabbles for a different way of thinking that might permit, or change, her two, seemingly paradoxical ideas: that we, as a species, are not so special, and that she, as a lover, is.
'A poet of tremendous imaginative range, artistic vision, and accomplishment' – Kayo Chingonyi, author of A Blood Condition
The second poetry collection from acclaimed poet Susannah Dickey, winner of the PEN Heaney Prize.
How do we communicate the hopefulness of new love in a dying world?
A young woman, dining alone in a Paris bistro while awaiting the arrival of her lover – confronts her dish of calf’s head with wi...
About the author
Susannah Dickey is a poet and novelist from Derry and the author of four pamphlets, I had some very slight concerns; genuine human values; bloodthirsty for marriage; and Oh!. Her poems have been published in The Poetry Review, The TLS, Poetry London, and Poetry Ireland Review, amongst others. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner, a prize granted for a collection by poets under the age of thirty. Susannah is the author of three novels, Tennis Lessons, Common Decency and into the wreck. Her debut poetry collection ISDAL won the 2024 PEN Heaney Prize. Her second collection, Language Animal, will publish in April 2027.
Susannah Dickey is a poet and novelist from Derry and the author of four pamphlets, I had some very slight concerns; genuine human values; bloodthirsty for marriage; and Oh!. Her poems have been published in The Poetry Review, The TLS, Poetry London, and Poetry Ireland Review, amongst others. She...
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
