This Changes Things

by Claire Askew

This changes things is Claire Askew's first full collection, coming after years of work in Scotland's flourishing poetry and spoken word scene. Her poems focus on the lives and experiences of women - particularly the socially or economically marginalised - at pains both to empathise and to recognise the limits of this empathy. They embody a need to acknowledge and challenge the poet's privileged position as documenter and outsider, a responsibility to the poem's political message and to that message's human subject. This changes things draws much of its strength from this exploration of inbetweenness. Claire Askew's purposeful deployment of objects, lighting effects and liminal spaces implicates her reader in the poem's argument, holds up a mirror and asks us to pay attention. The book's romantic relationships, depictions of frustrated travel or social mobility, are bound up in its awareness of the systems of power that permit no true state of innocence. Even the final poem, 'Hydra' - with its celebration of the body and its senses - cannot ultimately allow us off the hook.

Genres: Poetry, Scotland

72 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Claire Askew is a poet, novelist and the current Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel, All the Hidden Truths, was the winner of the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the 2014 Peggy Chapman-Andrews (Bridport) Novel Award. Claire holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and has won a variety of accolades for her work, including the Jessie Kesson Fellowship and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award.

Her debut poetry collection, This changes things, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016 and shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and a Saltire First Book Award. In 2016 Claire was selected as a Scottish Book Trust Reading Champion, and she works as the Scotland tutor for women's writing initiatives Write Like A Grrrl! and #GrrrlCon.

Claire Askew was born in 1986 and grew up in the Scottish Borders. She has lived in Edinburgh since 2004. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Poetry Scotland, PANK, Edinburgh Review and Be The First To Like This: New Scottish Poetry (Vagabond Voices, 2014), and have been selected twice for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems of the Year. In 2013 she won the International Salt Prize for Poetry, and in 2014 was runner-up for the inaugural Edwin Morgan Poetry Award for Scottish poets under 30. She runs the One Night Stanza blog, and collects old typewriters (she currently has around 30).

Reviews

[Arie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those odd times where I could tell it's brilliant, but we just... didn't click. I even read it through twice with space between, just in case, and I'll still happily give it 4 stars, but it isn't for me somehow.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

So continues my love affair with modern Scottish poetry. Yes; excellent; wonderful; more of this. (Proper review to follow.)

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourites of 2016, in the category 'Best Debut Poetry Collection That Made Me Do a Mini Fist-Pump:':
http://www.kirstylogan.com/best-books...

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this varied and vigorous collection of poems by an Edinburgh poet because it was recommended by the staff of Golden Hare Books, an independent bookseller in the same city. I started reading it immediately, continued it on the trans-Atlantic flight back to Houston from Scotland, and finished it when I returned home. It’s a delight. Askew’s subjects, emotional response, and points of view are wide ranging: a house fire, Barcelona seen by the tourist and the resident poor, what it’s like to be a poltergeist, the disconsolate loneliness of small town life where everything remains the same, travel on the American west coast, her love for her grandmother and a collection of grandmother’s sayings, “What a right bag of washing / Bent as a nine-bob note / Twined as a bag of weasels,” even one I heard from my American born Scotch grandmother, “Six of one and a half dozen of another.”

[Kendra]

A stunning debut poetry collection, written in two parts. Two of my favourite poems are 'Seefew steading' and 'Anne Askew's Ashes,' though I'll readily admit to enjoying all of these! This changes things is a very approachable collection, full of humanity and a joy to read (and re-read!).

I received a copy of the collection in return for an honest review. On 13th May 2016 an article I wrote about Claire Askew's debut collection featured in Lothian Life Magazine. You can read it here: http://www.lothianlife.co.uk/2016/05/...

[Ellie Kidger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection full of reality. The language is vulgar, violent, dark, and strong, giving a weight to the poetry. 'To Wakefield' is my favourite in the collection, and is brutal in its honesty.

[Gemma Innes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems in this collection are moving and invigorating. I enjoyed it so much that after reading a copy from the Scottish poetry library I bought my own. A more in depth review will go up ony blog in the new year.

I love the writing style and the messages readable within the works. I hope that more collections by Askew are published in the future. The fact that she is a home country girl adds to my enjoyment as I like to support Scottish artists :)

[Alanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pick this up every so often and always find something new - must read more poetry.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. Particularly loved ‘I’m sorry I’m still in love with my grandmother’ and ‘The axe of the house’.

[Katrina McCrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't normally read poetry and only read this as this was the Book Clubs choice. Loved it. A book to pick up and put down whenever the mood takes you.