Windfalls

by Susie Wild

In Windfalls , Wild writes of fruit blown down by the wind, of unexpected and unearned gains which renew the beauty and joy of life. Here flying trampolines disrupt trains, apples carpet gardens, the Balloon Girl rises, and the red moon sinks. In a city of ups and downs, the Handkerchief Tree rare-blooms, fists and knickers are flung, crestfallen angels consider dates, carnivores go hungry, wedding vows are made, and a pandemic honeymoon is cancelled. These are also stories of heroines who fall or jump from pedestals, taking risks in a world that is often dangerous for women, but refusing to settle for the conventional. Wild continues to bring us her refreshingly slant world view, whether unpicking the domestic, the political, or the environmental.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published November 5, 2021

About the author

Susie Wild is the author of the poetry collections Windfalls (Parthian, 2021) and Better Houses (Parthian, 2017), the short story collection The Art of Contraception (Parthian, 2010), listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals (Parthian, 2011).

Windfalls (Parthian, 2021):

‘“A chase of messages illuminates my screen/through the small hours.” So begins Susie Wild’s new collection, and among things that are fascinating here are the messages these powerful, beautifully crafted poems bring us. From an interaction with a violent taxi driver to the experiences of a mistreated mother to a “whirlwind love” for a husband, this collection understands the power of lyric poetry to bring us real and raucous life. The poems are endlessly engaging, individually and in the ability of the writer to create sequences and consider the emotional arc of a collection. I’m reminded how now, more than ever, there’s nothing like poetry to cut down the spaces between us, to leap across gaps, make a friend of a stranger. Just as, in 'The Starfish,' there’s a commitment to “slowly … fix the broken things,” so these poems show us, again and again, how something of the greatest importance can be crafted from the chaos that life does.’ – Jonathan Edwards

‘Her poems are beautiful, even when tackling difficult subjects, and arresting without feeling over-ornamented or inflated. Above all, they shine with authenticity - perhaps because she has a magpie’s appetite for glimpsed moments...’ – Jenny White, The Western Mail

'Wild comes across as the poetic equivalent of Jean Rhys: wry, arch, a little world-weary but, unlike Rhys, with a sparkling glint of humour... A very affecting collection of poems indeed.' – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine

Better Houses (Parthian, 2017):

'These poems are spells whose words bewitch the ordinary and transform the objects and routines of our human world with their word-magic.' – Gillian Clarke

'The world shifts and transforms itself in these subtly disconcerting poems: words into bees, surgical stitches into mascaraed eyelashes, a fossil oyster into a lover's toenails. The effect can be darkly sinister or exuberantly witty, but it's always new and refreshing. This is an exciting and assured poetic debut.' – Matthew Francis

‘Susie Wild writes with poise and precision about the places we inhabit, casting a benevolent spell over her reader.’ – Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

'The voice is concentrated, urgent; the material is often tender, even domestic. There is no contradiction in this. The poems come from raw edges of the spaces between people, and a sense of how provisional the tender things can be.' – Philip Gross

'Poems carefully built to be inhabited.' – Cynan Jones

'Susie Wild’s Better Houses announces a new, highly distinctive and exciting poetic voice. [...] The author’s balance between opening the door for the reader, and then hitting them with the poem’s highly original approach to language and a slightly slant way of looking at the world, make these poems highly entertaining and rewarding. [...] an accomplished and auspicious debut...' – Jonathan Edwards, Ink Sweat & Tears

'reels gorgeously from a restaurant to the seashore to the night sky [...] an unfinished journey through the experiences and signs that tell us we're home.' – Elizabeth Edwards, Planet International

'exuberant and smart [...] Half-remembered, half-invented, but wholly charismatic.' – Sophie Baggott, Wale

Reviews

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

An adept at modern poetry and the vagaries of the modern world, Susie Wild's latest collection explores life as a singleton being ghosted by boyfriends and yet haunting them, being vegan and yet having to hilariously put up with the palaver of men cooking meat to eventually finding a kind of happiness and marriage to a musician and key worker. This is bang up to date with poems like 'How To Become A Recluse' and 'How Quickly We Forget How To Live'. There is breath and range in these poems from love in a horrific London flat, to an amazing trampoline poem, from boxing lessons to the joy of swimming with swallows. These poems dance through this book without putting a foot wrong.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you hear a new song and think, 'how have I not heard this before, it should always have existed.' I felt the same reading this book, it felt familiar somehow – not because I’d read it before but because it should always have been written. I feel exhausted, enthralled and beguiled; like I’ve been privy to some great secret. A book to keep going back to, to read lines and between them.