Recovering a Body

One morning a woman wakes up and finds her body has disappeared. She tries revenge on her lovers, solitary celibacy, marriage and magic as she struggles to get it back. Another woman watches a clump of cells that will be her next baby swim towards her like a space-ship on an ultrasound scan. A third strips naked to bathe in the cold waters of Balnacarry. These powerful poems express the loneliness, comedy and pleasures of life in the body. They explore sexuality and the huge changes of...
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One morning a woman wakes up and finds her body has disappeared. She tries revenge on her lovers, solitary celibacy, marriage and magic as she struggles to get it back. Another woman watches a clump of cells that will be her next baby swim towards her like a space-ship on an ultrasound scan. A third strips naked to bathe in the cold waters of Balnacarry. These powerful poems express the loneliness, comedy and pleasures of life in the body. They explore sexuality and the huge changes of pregnancy and age=ing. They ask what it is really like to think, feel and write 'with two hearts beating inside me'. Women have often been told they must choose between children and artistic creativity. Helen Dunmore challenges the falsity of that choice, as her fifth collection of poems appears at the same time as her new baby.