My body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. (James Joyce, Dubliners)
Award-winning writer, spoken-word star, and spellbinding performer KateTempest's raw and exhilarating new collection is a heart-breaking, moving, and joyous book about the experience of love in its endings and beginnings.
In a sense, a departure from her previous work, Running Upon the Wires charts the dissolution of one relationship, the budding of another, and what happens in between, when the heart is pulled both ways at once. It's about joy and despair, confusion and clarity, self-destruction and revival. And it will come as no surprise to readers that Tempest is as direct, distinctive, and unflinching an observer of matters of the heart as she is of social and political change.
Calling in its title upon the classical poet's harp, the technological wires of communication, and the neural wires of feeling, Tempest's electrifying new verse weaves interpersonal struggle into a powerfully cathartic and memorable work of art. Explosively lyrical, rhythmic, and throbbing with feeling, this collection is frayed yet powerful in its pain, determined to speak and to find love in a human community of "terrifying beauty."
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[Even the rain was quiet - AWAKE ALL NIGHT THINKINGOF YOU]***
(Macmillan Digital Audio, 6September 2018, audiobook, 44 minutes, narrated by the poet, Audible)
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I'm an uber fan of Kate Tempest and could not wait to listen to her latest poetry collection. Tempest is an amazing performer and I would prefer to listen to her rather than just read her words. Running upon the Wires was a treat. This is very different from her usual poetry because the poems are undeniably personal focusing on the end of a relationship and the aftermath while trying to tread softly in a developing one. Her other collections deal with gods and myths and legends so it was good to read something closer to home. I could listen to this over and over and never grow tired of the sound of her voice or the poems. Running upon the Wires is proof this woman is fearless.
