A young woman spends a month taking the waters at a thermal water-based rehabilitation facility in Budapest. On her return to London, she attempts to continue her recovery using an £80 inflatable blue bathtub. The tub becomes a metaphor for the intrusion of disability; a trip hazard in the middle of an unsuitable room, slowly deflating and in constant danger of falling apart. Sanatorium moves through contrasting spaces - bathtub to thermal pool, land to water, day to night - interlacing memoir, poetry and meditations on the body to create a mesmerising, mercurial debut.
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Have you ever noticed that when we're near water we want to fuck? Remember Snowdonia? That icy river? LONDON
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(@PennedintheM, 20 April 2020, ebook, 128 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs)
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This poetry collection has been on my radar for ages since I read a glowing review in a magazine. It's the poet's debut. This is an incredible piece of writing. I can't wait to read the poet's next work. The poems don't use what I consider traditional poetry structure (i.e. stanzas) and are chunky paragraphs of prose. I usually don't like poems that use this style but they somehow really work in Sanatorium. The poems bounce back and forth between the rehab facility in Budapest and the poet's attempts to recreate the atmosphere in London. The poems are intense and personal. They focus on the poet's struggle at the facility to work through her chronic pain, conflicting advice of well-meaning therapists and her life outside the facility, trying to move a little more every day and live through the pain. Sanatorium is an incredible collection.
