the terrible

by Daniel Sluman

Daniel Sluman's bleak brilliance in the terrible is a masterclass in the power of poetry to confront difficult subject matter with accuracy and painstaking openness. These are rigorous and exacting poems, that dare to go to some of the darkest places and speak with stark precision. These poems may be stripped down, intense and utterly frank, but they are not without deep reserves of sincerity and beauty.

Sluman writes of the heady cocktail of being alive, where loss, love, sex, close shaves with mortality and sharp narratives of pain and suffering are explored with concise and humane clarity.

'Daniel Sluman's new collection explores acute and chronic, emotional and physical pain (and, albeit less often, pleasure) with a raw, compelling urgency. At times playful, at times harrowing, the terrible always brims with life.' - Carrie Etter

Genres: Poetry

62 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Daniel Sluman is a 34 year old writer and editor with a BA and MA in Creative Writing from University of Gloucestershire. His work explores disability through a mainly confessionalist mode, and his debut collection 'Absence has a weight of its own' was published by Nine Arches Press in 2012. In 2015 his second collection 'the terrible' was also published by Nine Arches Press and he won AHRC funding for a PHD in Disability Poetics at Birmingham City University. He co-edited the poetry anthology 'Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back' with Khairani Barokka and Sandra Alland in 2017. His third collection of poetry, 'single window' was published in September 2021 through Nine Arches Press.

Reviews

[Adam Magee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very intense read, it takes the subject of ill-health both mental and physical, and talks about it in a very crisp and brutal way, while using a very deceptively not so simple form and tone to portray it in a casual almost prosaic aesthetic that makes it flow well both for joy-reading or soul searching . It takes subject matter that should not entertain and turns it into an pill-addictive read where every re-read churns up new questions and answers.

The Title is so ironic, as while the subject matter may about the terrible (and not so ), the book's discourse is honed and focused as a spider bite, and it certainly will entangle you again and again so even when on the shelf it's cut and crafted poems stay stuck in your mind.

[Catherine Ayres · Rating 5 out of 5]

A taut and beautiful book. Every line is weighted with fear, courage and beauty. I really loved it.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

[2.5]

not my favorite collection but i can appreciate and understand what Sluman does in exploring his grief and love life, etc., but ultimately i couldn't connect with the style plus some of his descriptions of the women or like in the pov of women gave me the ick in a way.

some i did like:

confession
if my seductions were at the tips of my fingers
the terrible

[Sam Løvely · Rating 5 out of 5]

A second collection that absolutely delivered all on levels. Poignantly dark, an honest masterpiece.