#Abi Palmer: Sanatorium

[carminamasoliver]

Freelance Reflections #48

I didn’t write last week as I was hoping to share some photos of the Poetry Party, but still yet to see them. For now, here’s some pictures of the lovely park. I performed my poem, ‘The Missing Scissors’, twice. The first time, I bombed it and forgot the lines three quarters of the way through. The second time, I smashed it, and could go home with my head held high. It was really fun to take part…

[thamesmeadtales]

My favourite four books published and read in 2020

BOY PARTS BY ELIZA CLARK Published by Influx Press

Truly like nothing I’ve ever read, Boy Parts is a completely original debut and one that compelled me, obsessively. 

Irina photographs average looking men in compromising, often sexual positions. She’s witty, bitter and beautiful and the more you read, the more you find out about her, and the less you trust her. As she begins to re-discover repressed memories she becomes more and more self destructive, hurting all those around her.

Irina is nasty, mean and twisted and also strangely likeable too. I really found myself thinking about the novel all the time when I wasn’t reading it and finished the book swiftly. WIthout a doubt the best thing I read in 2020 and I’m excited to see what Eliza Clark writes next.

SANATORIUM BY ABI PALMER Published by Penned in the Margins

I devoured Sanatorium in a single day, drinking in its beautiful, poetic prose, becoming desperate to get into water myself.

The story is completely surreal and follows the story of a young woman at a water rehabilitation centre in Budapest. It jumps back and forth between her time there and her return to London where she attempts to recreate the experience using an inflatable bath tub she buys online.

The story flowed so beautiful and left time to contemplate my own body and how lucky I am. Again, another incredibly original story, told in such a brilliant way.

THE LIARS DICTIONARY BY ELEY WILLIAMS Published by William Collins

The Liar’s Dictionary was my most anticipated read of 2020. Eley William’s is a terrific writer and I enjoyed her debut short story collection Attrib. (published by Influx) immensely. 

The story follows Peter Winceworth in late 19th century, as, disillusioned from his job at Swansby’s New Encylopaedic Dictionary, he begins writing fake entries in the dictionary. It switches between him and Mallory who, every day while interning at the same Dictionary, she fields threatening phone calls from an unknown man. Mallory is forced to check through the Dictionary entries, looking for Peter’s false word, as their lives begin to entwine.

To give away any more would be unforgivable but I truly encourage everyone to give this a go. There are specific scenes (one involving a pelican and a fountain pen and another an ice cream van) that will stay with me for ages. A really enjoyable read.

TINY MOONS: A YEAR OF EATING IN SHANGHAI BY NINA MINGYA POWLES Published by The Emma Press

Tiny Moons is a beautiful collection of essays I savoured as the weather began to get warmer last year, missing the beautiful Asian cuisine I usually enjoy going out for in London.

Nina explores specific dishes, our relationship with food, her childhood and belonging throughout these essays, and though a short collection, I was desperate for it to never end.

It made me hungry, sad, and desperate to see more of the world. Her poetry collection, Magnolia, is high up on my TBR.

[gracedenton]

KAIYA WAEREA Read Sick Writers - T-Shirt Campaign 2021

Referencing is a love language!

Image Description: The front design is a center alighned reading list, reading:

"Sick Woman Theory by Johanna Hedva The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Heroines by Kate Zambreno When the Sick Rule the World by Dodie Bellamy Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer How to be a Person in the Age of Autoimmunity by Carolyn Lazard Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag On Being Ill by Virginia Woolf The Body in Pain by Elaine Scarry The Rejected Body by Susan Wendell Exposure by Olivia Sudjic The Body Multiple by Annemarie Mol The Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain by Leslie Jamison I Choose Elena by Lucia Osborne-Crowley The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde Tender Points by Amy Berkowitz Sanatorium by Abi Palmer Notes Made While Falling by Jenn Ashworth The Undying by Anne Boyer Ill Feelings by Alice Hattrick Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha"

The back design reads "READ SICK WRITERS" across the sholder blades, with a colophon in smaller type on the bottom left of the tee. The typeface is a relaxed blackletter gothic caligraphy based on femenist ephemera. For more info in this check out Nat Pypers webiste.

The Tangerine is a warm red, and the Vintage White is a warm off-white.

Second Edition 2021 Reading list assembled by Kaiya Waerea Typeface Women's Car Repair Collective by Nat Pyper We Are Print Social donate to Black Minds Matter with every purchase Profit goes to Kaiya Waerea, a chronically ill writer & designer from Aotearoa living in London insta @kaiyawaerea | www.kaiyawaerea.com

[maartenbuser]

Nieuwe poëzievertaling: Abi Palmer

Eerder dit jaar verscheen in Kluger Hans een tweetal prozagedichten van de Britse kunstenaar en schrijver Abi Palmer, vertaald door ondergetekende. Ze zijn afkomstig uit het indrukwekkende Sanatorium, waarin pijnlijk realistische, dromerige en ronduit hallucinante scènes elkaar opvolgen. Ergens middenin het boek staat een wonderbaarlijke sequentie over een vrouw die Vincent van Goghs Sterrennacht in haar beenhaar kamt. Op de Kluger Hans-website is inmiddels mijn vertaling van deze hele sequentie verschenen.

[charliebaylis5]

My favourite poetry collections of 2020

(in no particular order, full collections only, other titles are available....)

Sam Riviere - After Fame

Will Harris - RENDANG

Robert Selby - The Coming-Down Time

Ella Frears - Shine, Darling

Andrea Witzke Slot - The Ministry of Flowers 

Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles, trans. Kristine Ong Muslim - Three Books 

Romalyn Ante - Antiemetic for Homesickness 

Don Paterson - Zonal

Abi Palmer - Sanatorium 

Pascale Petit - Tiger Girl

[badgirlnila]

Wellness is a seductive lie – and it is changing how we treat illness by Abi Palmer via Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2CrwQ9T

[maartenbuser]

Sanatorium (2020) van schrijver en kunstenaar Abi Palmer is een even aangrijpend als wonderlijk boek, op het snijvlak van memoires, essayistiek en prozagedichten. Liefhebbers van Maggie Nelson en Henri Michaux, opgelet! Voor de gloedjenieuwe Kluger Hans mocht ik twee fragmenten vertalen uit dit prachtboek.