Absence Has a Weight of Its Own

Daniel Sluman

• Publisher: Nine Arches Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780957098466
• eBook ISBN: 9781911027492
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Read three sample poems for free - just click the Extracts tab above. Daniel Sluman's Absence Has a Weight of Its Own is an unflinching study of serious illness, sex, death and decadence. In sometimes brutal and spare cadences, Sluman explores the extremities of human experience in poems that are skilfully, icily primed.This debut collection is at times provocative and by turns tender and wry. Frailties and vices are held up for inspection in a ruined landscape of disappointing highs, hung-over regrets and head-on collisions, haunted by figures such as Roman, an unrepentant and debauched womaniser. In the aftermath, real love and hope remain stubbornly, emerging into the sunlight of an unexpected new day."Dan Sluman is a poet accomplished beyond his years. His work demonstrates a maturity and control of image and form which gives his use of the poetic line all the tension of a band-saw. These poems have teeth. They are as brave and uncompromising as their imagery is startling. Not only that but he reads his work with extraordinary confidence and power. He is definitely a young poet to be watched."
Nigel McLoughlin"Daniel Sluman is a name to watch for. His poems are sharp and crafted with not a word out of place and he has a talent for the unexpected metaphor and simile which jolts with its fittingness. These are not comfortable poems, they can't be read – or heard – casually but this is a poet who clearly loves language and has the skill to work it. The one thing I demand from poems I read is that they change me in some way – and these do."
Angela France"This is a strong and sometimes violently beautiful debut that wears your heart in its mouth as much as it wears its heart on its sleeve. It is also a distinct pleasure to read aloud, its delicate musics blooming sharp as lime on the tongue. Here's to Sluman's next book!"
Adam Horovitz"Daniel Sluman's debut collection crackles with energy; his language is physical, fast-paced, passionate, fearless. A real discovery by Nine Arches Press.'
Penelope Shuttle Daniel Sluman is a poet based in Gloucestershire. His poems have appeared widely in journals such as Cadaverine, Popshot, Shit Creek Review and Orbis. He is the poetry editor of Dead Ink, and is on the editorial board for Iota.

TWO

ROMAN’S GHOST

She spat it into a plastic cup,

fell back, smearing her lips with her knuckles;

his stomach rolling knots under her head.

He tells her how his father split like a yolk

under his mistress, his mother learnt to change

tyres, measure the life left on a dipstick,

clamp silence. Roman clasps the side

of the girl’s face like a just-spun globe;

turns the beaker in his other hand, watching

his spectre congeal, grow, beat

its dumb fists against the side, a continent

muted, screaming nothing but the past.

TRANSCRIPT

There was so much,

so much red.

Everything stopped

for a second.

I caught it

in my eye;

we turned

slowly

upside

down

&

settled,

the windscreen

full of veins.

We started to laugh

as we looked,

thinking

the metal missed,

but he didn’t look right,

staring

at his slick palms

& then shaking one hand

into mine.

I held it as he smiled

but he couldn’t

choke the words,

& there were

no words.

SNOW/SWINGING #2

Still bruising
from the hurricane	of elbows,
the chassis rattled	like a ouija-glass.
We pressed	the horoscopes
for truth, the radio	promised
staggered	fall-out.
Last night left	nothing untouched,
history	licked
from the creases,
now, the trees
by the road
are throttled	with glitter,
the sun	purses the horizon
& the shadows	we nailed
to
	the floor
start to stir.

PORTRAIT AT A CAFÉ

She tears at the sheets

of her loose-bound notebook

but means to unravel

herself. Her hands

private suicides

stiffening life into ink.

I wince at the force

in her thumb; three divorces

tense the pages into the past.

She sips her cappuccino

& floats back to the evenings

when a single line

would catch, spark,

igniting everything below.

She is gulping down

the months before we met.

PICNIC

You narrowed

on the wrong details;

how her hair trapped

the light or her nails burnt

half-moons into the pale

of your arms. A fistful

of letters & three years

later you can still hear

the slow-scream

of her hymen tearing

through the grass;

how you both shivered

behind the eyes

like pages in the wind.

AMBITION & THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT

You stare unti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Absence
• ONE
• TWO
• THREE
• Acknowledgments