Running Upon The Wires

Description

Running Upon The Wires is Kae Tempest's first book of free-standing poetry since the acclaimed Hold Your Own. In a beautifully varied series of formal poems, spoken songs, fragments, vignettes and ballads, Tempest charts the heartbreak at the end of one relationship and the joy at the beginning of a new love; but also tells us what happens in between, when the heart is pulled both ways at once. Running Upon The Wires is, in a sense, a departure from their previous work, and unashamedly personal and intimate in its address - but will also confirm Tempest's role as one of our most important poetic truth-tellers: it will be no surprise to readers to discover that she's no less a direct and unflinching observer of matters of the heart than they are of social and political change. Running Upon The Wires is a heartbreaking, moving and joyous book about love, in its endings and in its beginnings.

Kae Tempest was born in London in 1985. Their work includes the plays Wasted, Glasshouse and Hopelessly Devoted; the poetry collections Everything Speaks in its Own Way and Hold Your Own; the albums Everybody Down, Balance and Let Them Eat Chaos; the long poems Brand New Ancients and Let Them Eat Chaos; and their debut novel, The Bricks that Built the Houses. They were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for their debut album, Everybody Down, and received the Ted Hughes Award and a Herald Angel Award for Brand New Ancients. Kae was also named a Next Generation poet in 2014.

In terms of visibility, Kate Tempest is currently way ahead of her performance-poet peers. Out on her own, she sounds like a woman who knows exactly what she's doing -- Observer One of the brightest British talents around. [Tempest's] spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart * Guardian * Dazzling wordsmithery. . . As anyone who has seen her perform will know, she doesn't just paint pictures with words when she performs, she paints fireworks in the night sky * Metro * Tempest's first book of free-standing poetry since 2014's Hold Your Own is a whirlwind of formal poems, spoken songs, ballads and fragments. Capturing the total loss at the breakdown of a beloved relationship or the dangers of catching a song on the radio that can floor you in an instant, Tempest uses words like a time traveller taking the reader into fragments of their own lives, successes and heartbreaks. Read and lose yourself in a total adventure. * Stylist * A cathartic and deeply moving read - a go-to for the love-stricken and heartbroken * The Skinny * Reading from the page, without accompaniment, allows her word-craft to shine. * Manchester Evening News * An honest, witty, mosaic-like view of love in the 21st century. -- Roger Cox * The i *