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Sarah Wardle writes with great humanity and makes "A Knowable World" of the indignity, frustrations and fear of acute episodes of mental illness. That's how she manages to get her readers to empathise with all those in the community, both in and out of hospital, who live with the stigma of madness. --Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger
Sarah Wardle's previous collection, SCORE!, took readers on an exuberant tour of Tottenham Hotspur FC, where she spent time as writer-in-residence. The change of tenor in "A Knowable World", which charts the reel and plunge of the year she spent in a psychiatric facility receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, could hardly be more pronounced. These are, necessarily, poems of deep introspection, in which manic episodes, escape attempts and the baffling helplessness of incarceration are examined with agonised honesty... these are convincing poems, delivered with a tight formality that echoes the strictures under which Wardle found herself, while at the same time providing her with a means of control over a terrifyingly ungovernable situation. --Sarah Crown, Guardian
Wardle writes with a jauntiness and a grasp of the need to be clear; and courage, the sort that took on and put behind her the dark things and the different, writer's courage, which dares to be understood and judged. --Edward Pearce, Tribune
Sarah Wardle's previous collection, SCORE!, took readers on an exuberant tour of Tottenham Hotspur FC, where she spent time as writer-in-residence. The change of tenor in "A Knowable World", which charts the reel and plunge of the year she spent in a psychiatric facility receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, could hardly be more pronounced. These are, necessarily, poems of deep introspection, in which manic episodes, escape attempts and the baffling helplessness of incarceration are examined with agonised honesty... these are convincing poems, delivered with a tight formality that echoes the strictures under which Wardle found herself, while at the same time providing her with a means of control over a terrifyingly ungovernable situation. --Sarah Crown, Guardian
Wardle writes with a jauntiness and a grasp of the need to be clear; and courage, the sort that took on and put behind her the dark things and the different, writer's courage, which dares to be understood and judged. --Edward Pearce, Tribune
Product Description
A KNOWABLE WORLD follows Sarah Wardle's detainment in a Central London psychiatric hospital for over a year for manic episodes of bipolar disorder. The poems chart the stresses of thirty-something city life through police arrests and hospitalisation under section orders to achieve a way out; then the threat and frustration involved in the fight for liberty and the patience needed to achieve recovery. Through commanding and apt expression, Sarah Wardle conveys bleak experience. These cathartic poems are themselves testimony to her ability to overcome the sense of futility, helplessness and panic involved in bipolar disorder. Form and technique have provided a framework for her to re-establish a sense of order and concentration out of chaos. A KNOWABLE WORLD bravely enlightens our understanding of mental illness.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent short collection, powerful and punchy and just what poetry should be. Sarah Wardle speaks from a mess, a tumult, the awfulness of hospital and being sectioned. But she does so calmly, in sparse language, so that we share the experince, with its loves and its fears, as from within. This is language as from behind bars, not difficult to read, not deliberately impenetrable but clear and sharp.
It's also a story. Unlike a lot of poetry books, there is a narrative thread that connects the whole. I found I wanted to read it all the way through.
It really made me think. This is well worth buying.
It's also a story. Unlike a lot of poetry books, there is a narrative thread that connects the whole. I found I wanted to read it all the way through.
It really made me think. This is well worth buying.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Sarah Wardle has had an interesting poetic career having studied classics at Oxford and been Poet in residence for a football team. Some also have a gentle philosophical bent. This collection is her most personal to date, charting the process of a breakdown due to bipolar disorder.
The poems deal with such subjects as emotional isolation in the process of the breakdown, the effect it has on her relationships with others (including the psychiatrist), and dealing with a bereavement while in hospital. Yet while the subject matter is harrowing there is a journey to healing which is both uplifting and moving.
The language is direct, and poignant, often rhyming, sometimes spare. Though profound, this is not difficult to read or enjoy for non-poetry readers, and plenty for regular readers. Recommended to all: especiaily those who have gone through such and experience, or seen a loved one in the same situation.
The poems deal with such subjects as emotional isolation in the process of the breakdown, the effect it has on her relationships with others (including the psychiatrist), and dealing with a bereavement while in hospital. Yet while the subject matter is harrowing there is a journey to healing which is both uplifting and moving.
The language is direct, and poignant, often rhyming, sometimes spare. Though profound, this is not difficult to read or enjoy for non-poetry readers, and plenty for regular readers. Recommended to all: especiaily those who have gone through such and experience, or seen a loved one in the same situation.
Format:Paperback
This is a remarkable book: I set out last night to read the first few poems and ended up at 1 am, profoundly moved and disturbed, having read the whole collection.
At the top level, this collection describes the author's experience of mental collapse, treatment and eventual recovery and stability. But it is more. Though the poems are intensely personal, the author's cool and slightly detached voice gives them a degree of universality that might otherwise have been missing.
This is helped tremendously by the nature of the verse: sparse and sinuous, with no flab or spare tissue. The author uses the barest minimum of words to create effects, and this hugely increases the impact, where a more consciously poetic approach to mental illness (we can all imagine what linguistic abominations could be committed by one determined to do so) would have failed to depict its horror with such power.
All of the poems are of very high quality. My favourites are 'Peace', a paean to peace and deep silence, 'Sarah, Wife of Abraham', a moving journey to acceptance of things as they are, and 'Handwriting', a very brief description of one isolated act that grants it an almost mystical status.
At the top level, this collection describes the author's experience of mental collapse, treatment and eventual recovery and stability. But it is more. Though the poems are intensely personal, the author's cool and slightly detached voice gives them a degree of universality that might otherwise have been missing.
This is helped tremendously by the nature of the verse: sparse and sinuous, with no flab or spare tissue. The author uses the barest minimum of words to create effects, and this hugely increases the impact, where a more consciously poetic approach to mental illness (we can all imagine what linguistic abominations could be committed by one determined to do so) would have failed to depict its horror with such power.
All of the poems are of very high quality. My favourites are 'Peace', a paean to peace and deep silence, 'Sarah, Wife of Abraham', a moving journey to acceptance of things as they are, and 'Handwriting', a very brief description of one isolated act that grants it an almost mystical status.
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