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Single Window
Daniel Sluman’s third collection, single window is a hybrid memoir of poetry and images.
One an amputee with chronic pain, the other suffering from Crohn's Disease and Fibromyalgia, Daniel Sluman and his wife Emily found the year of 2016 almost untenable. Unable to safely navigate the stairs to bed, they spent 24 hours a day together on their sofa, isolated from society except for a single window, where they watched the world moving around them.
single window is an incomparable, uncompromising and starkly-realised sequence of poems in the form of a journal, which bear witness to the loneliness and fear experienced by disabled people living in Tory Britain. Through a precise, hyper-confessional fusion of poetry and photography, this book dtails the realities of disabled lives, exploring intimacy and unconditional love as well as isolation and confinement, and documenting a world that many people otherwise never see.
One an amputee with chronic pain, the other suffering from Crohn's Disease and Fibromyalgia, Daniel Sluman and his wife Emily found the year of 2016 almost untenable. Unable to safely navigate the stairs to bed, they spent 24 hours a day together on their sofa, isolated from society except for a single window, where they watched the world moving around them.
single window is an incomparable, uncompromising and starkly-realised sequence of poems in the form of a journal, which bear witness to the loneliness and fear experienced by disabled people living in Tory Britain. Through a precise, hyper-confessional fusion of poetry and photography, this book dtails the realities of disabled lives, exploring intimacy and unconditional love as well as isolation and confinement, and documenting a world that many people otherwise never see.
- GenresPoetryDisability
72 pages, Paperback
Published September 30, 2021
1 person is currently reading
60 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Sluman
7 books18 followersDaniel 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 18, 2022
I think this book is most successful through the conversation it opens, rather than the conversation it is having - some parts of this really glow, but I found it had trouble sustaining its narrative when it is situated in such an enclosed space. If anything, I would have rather had it either be much more insular and claustrophobic, or much more expansive in its themes.
July 18, 2022
* 3.5 stars
February 3, 2022
Spectacular work.
December 1, 2021
I finished this book several days ago but it’s taken a while to process before I felt able to put into words it’s effect on me.
It is achingly beautiful. Daniel’s words are suffused with love and intimacy for his wife Emily, as well as the intensity of chronic illness and pain, and the raw reality of their lives.
Though outwardly their lives, chronicled here so honestly, may appear constrained, Daniel’s words have built universes within and between their bodies.
Many of the lines bloomed inside me, like a bruise. But ultimately I was left with hope, and a jagged joy for the intensity of life. A book to return to, many times over. And for lines like these:
“being loved by you /
is like turning the volume up so high /
you can’t hear yourself breathe”
It is achingly beautiful. Daniel’s words are suffused with love and intimacy for his wife Emily, as well as the intensity of chronic illness and pain, and the raw reality of their lives.
Though outwardly their lives, chronicled here so honestly, may appear constrained, Daniel’s words have built universes within and between their bodies.
Many of the lines bloomed inside me, like a bruise. But ultimately I was left with hope, and a jagged joy for the intensity of life. A book to return to, many times over. And for lines like these:
“being loved by you /
is like turning the volume up so high /
you can’t hear yourself breathe”
April 22, 2023
Never read poetry other than at school, thought it would go over my head. Glad I tried, note to self to do it more:)
December 7, 2021
This is the third collection of poems by Daniel Sluman. It's pretty damn good. It might be the most personal of the collections in the T S Eliot Poetry Prize shortlist, alongside C+unto and Othered Poems.
Regular readers of my reviews will know that I fall back on Anna Akhmatova's 'Requiem' for the quote that emphasises the role of poet as witness. Here Daniel Sluman gives lays bare his life for us to witness. The stark reality of a year in the life of a disabled person living in modern Britain. It is also a love story.
It is, effectively, a journal of the year 2016 when he and his wife, Emily, found themselves unable to safely climb the stairs to their bedroom. It meant that they spent 24hrs a day on their sofa with only a single window through which they could watch the outside world. It is divided into four sections, each named after a season of the year, starting with autumn. Sluman introduces us to the routines of pain management and survival.
The sections also feature photographs that make this more than just a poetry collection and more an artwork. It's a route Caleb Femi went down with Poor. Indeed, you could make a double-bill of Poor and Single Window to get an insight into what modern Britain looks like if you are on the edge of it as opposed to being seen as fully part of it.
The poetry is fantastic. It is brutally honest and straightforward. It subjects pain, loneliness, love, family, need and shows us how time slips and slides away from you in their circumstances. How the morphine for the pain steals time from you and how the whole process makes you feel like you're not yourself. That you are being robbed of yourself.
It is also a love story. The relationship between Emily and Daniel, despite everything that each of them suffers from, is the core of the collection. There's one section where Daniel describes Emily oiling Daniel's stump. It is one of the most moving parts of the collection, for me.
"...this is how it feels
to have your trauma held
i tell you your kindness kills me
your grace kills me."
None of that though stops us from seeing the difficulties they are facing.
This collections shows us the reality of a life that we would not see. It is a fantastic collection and I hope you get a chance to read it. Because it is worth it.
Regular readers of my reviews will know that I fall back on Anna Akhmatova's 'Requiem' for the quote that emphasises the role of poet as witness. Here Daniel Sluman gives lays bare his life for us to witness. The stark reality of a year in the life of a disabled person living in modern Britain. It is also a love story.
It is, effectively, a journal of the year 2016 when he and his wife, Emily, found themselves unable to safely climb the stairs to their bedroom. It meant that they spent 24hrs a day on their sofa with only a single window through which they could watch the outside world. It is divided into four sections, each named after a season of the year, starting with autumn. Sluman introduces us to the routines of pain management and survival.
The sections also feature photographs that make this more than just a poetry collection and more an artwork. It's a route Caleb Femi went down with Poor. Indeed, you could make a double-bill of Poor and Single Window to get an insight into what modern Britain looks like if you are on the edge of it as opposed to being seen as fully part of it.
The poetry is fantastic. It is brutally honest and straightforward. It subjects pain, loneliness, love, family, need and shows us how time slips and slides away from you in their circumstances. How the morphine for the pain steals time from you and how the whole process makes you feel like you're not yourself. That you are being robbed of yourself.
It is also a love story. The relationship between Emily and Daniel, despite everything that each of them suffers from, is the core of the collection. There's one section where Daniel describes Emily oiling Daniel's stump. It is one of the most moving parts of the collection, for me.
"...this is how it feels
to have your trauma held
i tell you your kindness kills me
your grace kills me."
None of that though stops us from seeing the difficulties they are facing.
This collections shows us the reality of a life that we would not see. It is a fantastic collection and I hope you get a chance to read it. Because it is worth it.
February 9, 2024
I really loved some of these poems, and found the way Sluman wrote about nature and the seasons to be so beautiful.
My favourite out of the collection was page 36 in Winter, it was stunning and the way the lines flowed into the next was so seamless.
However, I felt that the narrative it had in the beginning got a little lost towards the end, and I didn't find myself enjoying many of the poems in the latter half. That's not to say they were bad by any means!
Overall, a lovely collection and an eye-opener to what people who suffer with chronic pain and illnesses have to go through on a daily basis.
My favourite out of the collection was page 36 in Winter, it was stunning and the way the lines flowed into the next was so seamless.
However, I felt that the narrative it had in the beginning got a little lost towards the end, and I didn't find myself enjoying many of the poems in the latter half. That's not to say they were bad by any means!
Overall, a lovely collection and an eye-opener to what people who suffer with chronic pain and illnesses have to go through on a daily basis.
December 29, 2021
A beautiful, poignant collection. Dan expertly communicates the experience of being disabled in Britain and I related to so much of it. His hyper-confessional work focuses on the minutiae of life, capturing each moment like a photographer. I highly recommend it.
August 29, 2022
In spare language & exquisite detail, Daniel Sluman's Single Window is a sensual and vulnerable close up of love.
October 15, 2022
Gorgeous. All the life's essentials: pain, love, waiting.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews