Product Description

The Silence Living in Houses unlocks the doors to houses of secrets and dreams where ghosts of the past are more real than the living. In unsettling poems rich with intrigue, Esther Morgan traces the presence of those whose stories are fading like the wallpaper: the servant girl who smashed the dinner service and disappeared; the sisters whose macabre end is still spoken of in whispers; the mistress who breathes sweet nothings from behind the roses. At the heart of the book is the darkest of interiors where the threat and practice of violence forges a bond as unbreakable as the Mafia's code. But not all these houses are unsafe: the final poems summon up the haunted blood of family, revealing how what remains unspoken is as much concerned with love as it is with loss. 'Esther Morgan's poems are full of hints and mysteries ...But there are joys here as well as anxieties, and it is the two that amplify each other into such clear, poignant and resonant shapes' - george szirtes 'Morgan's voice is gentle and sensuous, lingering over images of beauty as well as horror...Her language is delicate, her images and metaphors unforced, giving the poems an organic quality' - rachel elliot, PN Review 'Themes of erasure, absence and isolation are explored in a voice so ingenuous, its language and syntax so plain, that it takes a while to notice quite how disturbing the poetry is' - stephen knight, TLS

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115027 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 63 pages

About the Author
The Silence Living in Houses is Esther Morgan's second collection. Her first, Beyond Calling Distance (Bloodaxe, 2001), won the Aldeburgh Festival First Collection Prize and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. Born in 1970 in Worcestershire, she taught creative writing for several years at the University of East Anglia, where she also edited four volumes of the contemporary poetry anthology, Reactions (Pen & Inc Press). She now lives in Oxfordshire where she divides her time between freelance arts projects and working for Social Services in their Child Protection department, something which has left its mark on her work.

Customer Reviews

Another great book
I came across Esther Morgan's highly evocative poem "Hints For Outback Motoring" in a literary anthology, and I was hooked. Her debut kept what the poem promised: a distinctive voice, fascinating language and atmosphere. This book here is just as great. I haven't got the faintest idea why she isn't named in the same breath as Wendy Cope or Simon Armitage; on the other hand, it's a good book to give to friends who love poetry and surprise them with somebody fresh and convincing. This is great poetry, and I recommend it unconditionally.