The Bird You Are
By Lisa Dart
New Release
ISBN: 9798987135945
ISBN: 9798987135952
About the Book
“I’d like to be a painter,” writes Lisa Dart in these brief, stunning portraits. Each prose-poem is addressed, epistle-like, to her mother, as though the once strikingly beautiful red-head, now diminished by illness, loss, and age, into a white-haired rarely lucid woman, might explain the inexplicable truths of their entwined and tragic history. A train’s evening-lit passing, sheepskin ankle boots with snow melting on their tread, the pulse of an emergency room heart monitor— this lyrical and searing language paints a moving picture of the painful but ultimately loving relationship at the fluttering heart of this collection.
Reviews
Exquisitely vivid and fitting, Dart’s image of her mother as a bird is at moments uplifting, at others heartbreaking.
—ANDREA HOLLANDER, author of And Now, Nowhere But Here
These poems act as tender, loving testimony to a difficult and beautiful character.
—KIM LASKY, author of Eclipse and Petrol, Cyan, Electric
So moving. We couldn’t speak afterwards and had to go and open a window and just stand there looking out. Beautiful!
—SILVIA MACRAE-BROWN, reader
The prose poem form is perfect for those stirring pieces concerning your mother—extremely powerful work. Thank you for bringing this book into the world. There is a sense of lament in the pieces, and such deep, deep, compassion.
—CLARE BEST, reader
Your poems are exquisite. Deft, heartfelt, eloquent. You give epic scale to small moments and find rich poetry in the everyday. They moved me deeply.
—ANGIE FARROW, Professor Emerita
About the Author
Lisa Dart is a poet and prose writer. A finalist for the Grolier Poetry Prize (USA, 2004), The Aesthetica Poetry Competition (UK, 2013), and The Troubadour International Poetry Prize (UK, 2022), she has a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Sussex (UK). Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including Eastern Iowa Review, Tears in The Fence, and The London Magazine. She is the author of The Linguistics of Light (poems, Salt, 2008); Fathom (prose memoir, Free Association Press, 2019); This Thing of Darkness (IPBooks, 2024), a highly experimental illustrated book using multiple texts, which won a British Arts Council Award; and Even So, This Song and The Bird You Are (Shangana Press, 2025).