Sheetstone

by Susan Blanshard

Blanshard's mystical book length poem, Sheetstone, is a woman's journey into a spiritual realm where narrative, language, and emotion are tender and fractured. The slopes of this epic poetry-memoir is a' magic whip' for passion remembrance, healing songs of bitterness and witty irony. Love and death on the same bed, or powerful imagers of visceral pain and tenderness are put together with feeling and intelligence. Like 'the seed in the core" the poetry resides inside an ineffable heart and comes out in original, sensitive, beautiful tones and words. Romantic lyrics that surround the poet's travels through Asia to Europe, Oceania and finally Hanoi. Each is laced with the sights and sounds of these land masses, weaving the traces of clothing and architecture into the distance between the poet and her beloved. Sex is at once a rite of passage as well as a source of inspiration.

159 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2024

About the author

Susan Blanshard was born in Hampshire, England. She is a best-selling author, and an internationally acclaimed poet, essayist and English Poet translator.
The daughter of a Naval officer, diplomat, film-maker and photographer,she experienced a nomadic childhood. Consequently, her literary work is coloured by her multicultural past and present.
Susan is author of Sheetstone: Memoir for a Lover (Published by Spuyten Duyvil, 2006), a book length poem. 'Sleeping With the Artist'', poetic prose. Selected poetry from 'Evidence of Obsession' and 'Perfume River' are published in The World's Literary Magazine, Projected Letters, Six Bricks Press and Arabesque Magazine. Her essays published in Lotus International Women's Magazine, ICORN International Cities of Refuge. PEN International Women Writers' Magazine. And PEN International Writers Committee The Fourth Anthology, Our Voice, Nuestra Voz, Notre Voix, Biblioteca De Textos Universitarios, Argentina, Collections of poetry and essays Fragments of the Human Heart. Her essays The Pillow Book, Four Recipes, The Traveler, Orientation, published in Arts And Culture, Lotus International Magazine, Hanoi, Coldnoon Poetics and etc.
Susan was English Poet for the 10th recipient of the Cikada prize for Poetry 2017, with poetical translations for 8 books of poetry for acclaimed Vietnamese Poet Mai Van Phan,
Susan was an invited International guest of The First Asia Pacific Poetry Festival held in Halong Bay, Vietnam, February 1-7th, 2012 and International participant Xth Vietnamese Poetry Day, held at The Temple of Literature, Hanoi, February 4th- 5th, 2012 and March 2015. Her collected poems Running The Deserts, Midnight Mojave are included in the VAANI Anthology for the Olympic Games, London 2012. Her essay with Vietnamese translation is featured in The Anthology of The First Asian Pacific Poetry Festival, 20012. Selected new poetry from Poems From The Alley - Da Tuong Street, have been translated into Bengali to included in three literary reviews.
Susan is a Committee Member for International PEN Women Writers and a Foundation Member of Asian Pacific Writers APW. She is currently completing a novel.