Divisible by Itself and One is the powerful new collection from our foremost truth-teller Kae Tempest. Ruminative, wise, with a newer, more contemplative, and metaphysical note running through, it is a book engaged with the big questions and the emotional states in which we live and create. Some of the poems experiment with form, some are free, and yet all are politically and morally conscious. Divisible by Itself and One is also a book about human form, the body as boundary and how we are read by the world. Taking its bearings - and title - from the prime number, Divisible by Itself and One is concerned, ultimately, with integrity: how to live in honest relationship with oneself and others.
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Empty street beside the railway at night,Spot-lit pigeons pecking at dropped bones,Low houses lean in like a family
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(Picador, 27 April 2023, e-book, 64 pages, bought from AmazonKindle)
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I'm an uber-fan of the author and couldn't wait to read Divisible by Itself and One. I love their performing and sort of wished I had bought the audiobook. I'll likely buy a copy eventually. The poems in the collection are what I've come to expect from the author; persona, powerful, visual, intense and a little dazzling. It's a short book and I had to stop myself from devouring it in one setting, spreading the pleasure across a few days. I really loved Body, Getting On, One-Hundred And Eighty-Three Night Stand, The Impossibility Of It, Absurd and Give And Take.