Winner of the Costa Poetry Award • Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Award and the Forward Prize “These lyrics…illustrate poetry’s unique ability to shock readers into a renewed awareness of the world.” —Washington Post Falling Awake, winner of the Costa Award for Poetry, “give[s] us the sensation of living alongside the natural world, of being a spectator to the changes that mark our mortality” (Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker). Falling Awake expands on the imagery of fallen soldiers from Homer’s Iliad portrayed in her previous volume, Memorial—defining life as a slowly falling weight, where beings fight against their inevitable end. Oswald reimagines classical figures such as Orpheus and Tithonus alive in an English landscape together with shadows, flies, villagers, dew, crickets—all characterized in tension between the weight of death and their own willpower. FROM “VERTIGO” let me shuffle forward and tell you the two minute life of rain starting right now lips open and lidless cold all-seeing gaze
Isabel Wright spends her days at the Belvedere Centre for Sleep Research analyzing the dreams of others. It's satisfying, lucrative work, but it can be emotionally draining at times. Especially when one of her anonymous subjects, known only as Client Number Two, captures her imagination through his compelling dream narratives. Client Number Two's real name is Ellis Cutler. A loner who learned long ago not to let anyone get too close, he works for a highly classified government agency with an interest in the potential value of lucid dreaming. And he has just been ordered by his boss to make contact with Isabel, who's been fired after the sudden death of her boss, Dr. Belvedere. When they meet in the flesh, the dream becomes real enough to touch. And a waking nightmare begins. For a suspicious hit-and-run leads them into a perilous web of passion, betrayal and murder, and forces them to walk the razor-thin line between dreams and reality
After reading Falling Awake, I feel clearer about almost everything. Even truths I thought I already knew, seem more natural and easily attainable. This book is a beautiful presentation of some wondrous thoughts about the things that matter most. Marianne Williamson, author of Illuminata and The Healing of America.
Haden Black changed Theia Alderson's life when he appeared in her dreams. And to save Haden, Theia sacrificed everything, but the dangerous bargain she made could have lasting repercussions. Now Theia is susceptible to the same deadly hungers that Haden has long struggled with-and their return to Serendipity Falls could test their control. And someone from Haden's past is determined to destroy Theia from the inside out, starting with those closest to her...
Theia Alderson has always led a sheltered life in the small California town of Serendipity Falls. But when a devastatingly handsome boy appears in the halls of her school, Theia knows she's seen Haden before- not around town, but in her dreams. As the Haden of both the night and the day beckons her closer one moment and pushes her away the next, the only thing Theia knows for sure is that the incredible pull she feels towards him is stronger than her fear. And when she discovers what Haden truly is, Theia's not sure if she wants to resist him, even if the cost is her soul.
A collage of water stories from the Odyssey, reconstructed as a mesmeric and hallucinatory book-length poem by acclaimed poet Alice Oswald. In Memorial, her unforgettable transformation of the Iliad, Alice Oswald breathed new life into myth. In Nobody, she returns to Homer, this time fixing her gaze on a minor character in the Odyssey—a poet abandoned on a stony island—and the sea that surrounds him. Familiar voices drift in and out of the poem; though there are no proper names, we recognize Helios, Icarus, Alcyone, Philoctetes, Calypso, Clytemnestra, Orpheus, Poseidon, Hermes, and the presiding spirit of Proteus, the shape-shifting sea-god. As with all of Oswald’s work, this is poetry that is made for the human voice, but here the language takes on the qualities of another element: dense, muscular, and liquid. Reading Nobody is like watching the ocean; we slip our earthly moorings and follow the circling shoal of sea voices into a mesh of sound and light and water—fluid, abstract, and moving with the wash of waves.
Falling Awake - A Heroine's Journey is a memoir about how we continue to re-create early experiences throughout our lives, until we can wake up enough to realise and set ourselves free. The story is told in three parts; revisiting Victoria's early life and the events that shaped her, recalling how she then repeated the patterns that had been set, then finally integrating her learning from 20 years as a psychotherapist to set about healing the past and attempting to move forward in a new way. The result is a raw and honest, often funny, often sad, tale of introspection and growth. This book is for anyone who is curious about the patterns we repeat and how we are conditioned by our early experiences. It is also for anyone who may be feeling stuck and who is looking for some inspiration or has ever wondered...is it just me?! In 2018, after her two boys had left home, Victoria decided to sell her house, go travelling and re-discover who she was and who she was going to be for the next phase of her life. She stepped into the unknown, trusting what would unfold. What followed was two years of travelling to several countries, training to be a qoya teacher, taking part in numerous ceremonies and rituals, attending 10-day-long silent vipassana retreats, selling the remainder of her possessions, healing some old wounds, and writing a memoir. In sharing her story she trusts that it will find its' way to those who will benefit from reading about it, because when we write to heal and share that writing, others can heal too. Victoria is a writer, psychotherapist, mindfulness and qoya teacher. Through a blend of these therapeutic practices, she guides others to tell their story and reclaim their truth. "There are books that tell half-truths, like a manicured garden, where all that is not traditionally seen as beautiful is weeded away. And then there are books that tell whole truths, that compost pain, grief, and confusion into wisdom, compassion, and love, with the courage to ask deeper questions and to answer honestly. Victoria's writing is an example of the power there is in sharing our stories. As we read another's reflection on their life, we receive an opportunity to better see ourselves." - Rochelle Schieck, author of Qoya: A Compass for Navigating an Embodied Life that is Wise, Wild and Free "When a woman tells her story, she gives others permission to do the same. Falling Awake - A Heroine's Journey by Victoria Smisek allows us to look into the past as we reach for a more authentic future. Victoria takes us on the road trip of a lifetime. By the end of the book, you'll be inspired to share your story, too." - Betsy Blankenbaker Murphy, author of Autobiography of an Orgasm "This memoir, both skillfully and intelligently written, seductively draws its reader into a sometimes gritty adventure of a life thus far... filled with poignancy, humour, and self-reflection in just the right balance that kept me hooked from beginning to end. It was hard to stop reading once I had started... a must-read for anyone also interested in self-discovery and life." - Sarah Burt ND, author of Getting healthy in 7 simple steps
