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365 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 6, 2024
‘here's the story: in sixteen years my lips
have never been kissed, but my name spends years
kissed in every gossiping mouth, kissed
with disapproving teeth, kissed by the threat of
disgrace, of exile, my name kissed
by every whisper, by every shaken head
while i sit inside it, untouched & full
of a wanting i cannot name, of something doused
in gasoline & ready to catch’
‘Louise was one of my most important teachers and this is my favourite of her books. Blunt and plainspoken and austere and still so vivid, so pretty. Such surprising musicality. My novel Bright Red Fruit owes a lot to the Persephone poems in this book.’