Through moving and incisive poetry, Crystal traces the arc of one woman's experience after the discovery that her partner is addicted to crystal meth.
In a highly original poetic act of reclamation, it plunders the drug itself and makes of it an overarching conceit to articulate the devastating impact of living with a loved one who is utterly changed. Deeply felt, tirelessly inventive, this collection gives voice to addiction's explosive effect within a family. At the same time it speaks universally and with urgency of the power of poetry to take one through the darkest of times.
By:
Ellen Cranitch
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Paperback original
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 8mm
ISBN: 9781780376974
ISBN 10: 1780376979
Pages: 96
Publication Date: 25 April 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
9 Bonnard I 10 Bonnard II 11 Bonnard III 12 C10H15N 13 Words 14 Strickeen 15 Actaeon 16 Metamorphoses 17 Io 18 Uplift 19 Tom 21 Athens I 22 Athens II 23 To Cavafy 24 Revelations 25 Secrets 26 Void 27 Betrayal 28 The Wishing Cup 29 Double Exposure 30 Heston Services 31 The Drive West 32 Kingsley Road 33 The Stars 34 Dan 36 How They Give Back to Me 37 ‘en las multitudes’ 38 The Dream 39 Riverside 40 Fife 41 ‘lente currite’ 42 ‘Relapse’ 43 Bypass 44 Trust 45 Some statistics on relapse 46 The Undertow 47 Reactions 48 Kinship 49 Praed Street 50 Prayer 51 The Beaked Ships 52 To Forget 53 Kryos 54 The Empty Space 55 Church of St Michael and All Angels 56 The Colour of Blood 57 Chez Camille 58 Degrees of Separation 59 Panic Attack 60 Antiphon 61 Tributary 62 The Question of Intention 63 The Parable of the Emerald and Dark Water 65 Theories of addiction 66 Crystall 67 Judgement 70 Definition of enabling 71 Living with Uncertainty 74 Addiction interaction disorder 75 Dissonance 76 Addiction and pleasure 77 ‘Against Hurt’ 78 The Ascent 80 Beauty 81 Radical 82 What Held Me 83 If Ever 84 Hope 85 Maple-serrated 86 The Dance 87 Grey 88 April 1794 89 Love 90 December 1574 92 Minerals Gallery, Natural History Museum, London 95 Acknowledgements
Ellen Cranitch was born in London of Irish parents. She holds an MA in English Literature from Cambridge University and a PhD from the University of St Andrews. She has taught literature and Creative Writing at a number of universities and currently teaches Masterclass and Advanced Poetry Workshop at the City Lit Institute, London.Crystalis her second collection.
Reviews for Crystal
Utterly mesmerising. An intensely rewarding and spine-tingling experience. What pain underlies it is mitigated by so much love, rescue, hope and triumph. Only a real poet can take one from a walk with Cavafy amongst the stones of the Acropolis to the misery of Heston motorway services; from Colombian emerald mines to communing with T.S. Eliot’s ashes in East Coker… Cranitch takes the resources of landscape, science, philosophy, mythology and of course poetry and uses them not just to meditate on the cruel, sordid, terrifying and humiliating truths of addiction, but to do something more than meditate – to understand, to resolve and to transform. This is what poetry at its best and truest can do. A wonderful achievement. -- Stephen Fry Tender and profound…honest and brave…propelled by a faith in the humane, in the redemptive possibilities of love… Crystal…adds to that library that attests to the human spirit’s ability to witness and endure and, sometimes at least, come out singing. -- Hisham Matar
