genuine human values

Susannah Dickey

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If you would like to preorder a copy of genuine human values (second printing) email us at thelifeboatbelfast@gmail.com.

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A re-writing of Hero and Leander, genuine human values is Susannah Dickey’s second pamphlet. Part verse drama, part sequence of free verse and prose poems, it reimagines the Greek myth through a lens of contemporary concerns of the body, reticence, and power dynamics. In this version, a decidedly unheroic protagonist, ‘H’, watches her lover perish in the currents of the Hellespont, and does nothing. In the aftermath of his death, she explores her grief through various interactions with the egotistical ‘A’ and her deranged priestesses, in myriad environs such as a supermarket check-out, a café and a graveyard.

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Susannah Dickey's commitment to a particular infectious kind of wit is everywhere in evidence in genuine human values. The turns of phrase and image are often surprising and, in the best sense, refreshing (of language, of received Hellenic tropes, of poetic/dramatic form). This second pamphlet of poems confirms Dickey as a poet of tremendous imaginative range, artistic vision, and accomplishment. - Kayo Chingonyi

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Susannah Dickey's poetry is fresh, very funny, and intellectually nimble. To read it is to be ushered by a fast-talking guide into a bright new hall in contemporary poetry, and to have no idea what's going to happen next. In short, exciting. This second pamphlet confirms the arrival of a significant new talent on the Northern Irish scene. Get in early. - Colette Bryce

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Susannah Dickey's poetry has appeared online and in print in Ambit, The Scores, The White Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Tangerine, Hotel. She was the recipient of a SIAP award from the Arts Council in 2018, was shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize, and was the winner of the inaugural Verve Poetry Festival competition. She was featured in the Lunar Poetry Podcasts anthology, Why Poetry? (Verve Poetry Press, 2018). She is the author of two poetry pamphlets. 

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