Sally Read

Off the Beaten Track presents new work by twelve writers taking part in a unique collaborative project: each of them was invited to compose one haiku per day for a month, thus contributing towards the total of 365 haiku for a full calendar year. Half of the authors are widely published writers of haiku, while the other half are almost (or entirely) new to the form. This situates the collection within the tradition of English-language haiku, while also seeking to extend its boundaries through the inclusion of ‘outsiders’ with respect to that tradition. Complementing the haiku are original illustrations by twelve artists, making the volume as visually striking as it is thought-provoking and diverse.

This cycle of poems reflects the life of Christ, by giving voice to and meditating on those closest to him and those who were touched by his earthly ministry. The defining events of the faith are explored with depth and freshness here, but also the tender moments that perhaps we consider less: Mary feeling the first movements of her baby within her, or Saint Joseph sitting beside his sleeping son. Written during Read's first ten years as a Catholic and poet in residence of the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs, the central narrative is interwoven with lyrical, contemplative pieces about God and our relationship with him. This book gives voice to what at times can seem inexpressible, bringing Christ closer by entering into his life and expressing his life in us.

This cycle of poems reflects the life of Christ, by giving voice to and meditating on those closest to him and those who were touched by his earthly ministry. The defining events of the faith are explored with depth and freshness here, but also the tender moments that perhaps we consider less: Mary feeling the first movements of her baby within her, or Saint Joseph sitting beside his sleeping son. Written during Read's first ten years as a Catholic and poet in residence of the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs, the central narrative is interwoven with lyrical, contemplative pieces about God and our relationship with him. This book gives voice to what at times can seem inexpressible, bringing Christ closer by entering into his life and expressing his life in us.

Sally Read converted from atheism to Catholicism when her daughter, Flo, was only four years old, but it did not take long for the child to become aware that many friends and relatives did not share her mother's newfound faith. This consciousness of "two worlds" led to a great many doubts in Flo, and some rebellion. Two nights before her First Communion she suddenly questioned whether she should receive the Eucharist.Sensing the precarious nature of faith in an overwhelmingly secular world, Read began writing down the compelling reasons for holding on to both God and Church. Taking the Annunciation as her template, she explored common experiences of the spiritual life as she meditated on each part of the story recorded in the Gospel of Luke.Drawing on Scripture, the saints, and the lives of people she has known personally or professionally as a nurse, Read shows how God is with us always--even in suffering, spiritual dryness, and depression. Although inspired by a mother's loving response to a daughter, this book will speak to any believer engaged in the bliss and the bewilderment of a relationship with God.

Across one day in London, twelve elderly men and women sit in flats, walk, or wait, and speak about their histories, their hopes, their loves, their disappointments and griefs - and above all seek to express who they are and what their life has been. Most are immigrants - Irish, West Indian, Polish, Italian, and German, struggling with a feeling of rootlessness. Drawn from Sally Read's experiences as a community psychiatric nurse in central London, these twelve monologues are the voices of schizophrenia, dementia, depression, and anxiety. Authentic and moving, they form a vivid portrait of the capital - its richness and its sadnesses, its waves of immigration, and its living witness to the devastating effects of World War II. Four of the voices are Jewish refugees who arrived in London as children, leaving parents to die in Nazi-occupied Europe. Candid and vivid, these monologues make us privy to entire lives through a poetic voice that is at once brutally realistic, and beautifully realised. Above all, these poems give marvellous expression to people whose speech, memory, and coherence is often marred by illness. The result is a stunning insight into other people's stories, and how we may come to measure our own.

Intimate and truthful, the poems in Sally Read's second collection move from the very earliest and most delicate stages of life, to the many adjustments of adulthood. Always startlingly honest, the pains of closeness and separation, love and mortality are dealt with in unflinching and transforming ways. "Broken Sleep" is a cycle of poems from a mother to her baby, moving from the uncertainty and awe at the discovery of a pregnancy, through the ecstasy of early motherhood. It charts, with tenderness, the child's development from fetus in the dark, to walking, talking toddler in a bewildering and exciting world. The poems comprise a hymn and an elegy to the experience of pregnancy and early motherhood. The second part of the book, "The Glass Eye", moves swiftly into a world where loss, whether of a loved one, a breast, or simply innocence, is countered by extraordinary kinds of redemption. Whether conjuring angels, music, or lies these pieces offer a sometimes disturbing but always marvellous alternative to the unavoidable blackness behind the glass eye.

From London's hospital wards to rural Italy and the Great Plains, Sally Read's first collection eulogises the emotional and physical borders we cross, whether in sexual surrender, the squeezing of a trigger, or the point at which skin is pierced by a needle. What results appeals to the thresholds at which we succumb to desire, love, or grief. Yet, ultimately, there is tenderness and acceptance as she considers what breaks us, and what binds.