To be alive is to be inside the wave, always travelling until it breaks and is gone. These poems are concerned with the borderline between the living and the dead - the underworld and the human living world - and the exquisitely intense being of both. They possess a spare, eloquent lyricism as they explore the bliss and anguish of the voyage.
Inside the Wave
, Helen Dunmore's tenth and final book of poetry, followed The Malarkey
(2012), whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition. Her other books include Glad of These Times
(2007), and Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001
(2001), a comprehensive selection drawing on seven previous collections. Her final poem, 'Hold out your arms', written shortly before her death and not included in the first printing of Inside the Wave
, was added to all subsequent printings.
COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 Winner of the 2017 Costa Poetry Award.
'This is a prize that celebrates "great writing, a good read and broad appeal". There is no better definition of Inside the Wave
: a book that is a fitting culmination, and lasting memorial, to a remarkable life and career.' - Nick Wroe, Costa Poetry Award judge, The Guardian
