Life Without Air
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€17.50
SHORTLISTED FOR THE TS ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY 2020
WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK AWARDS' POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR
A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE
"Whip-smart, sonically gorgeous" - Rae Armantrout, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Versed
When Louis Pasteur observed the process of fermentation, he noted that, while most organisms perished from lack of oxygen, some were able to thrive as 'life without air'. In this capricious, dreamlike collection, characters and scenes traverse states of airlessness, from suffocating relationships and institutions, to toxic environments and ecstatic asphyxiations.
Both compassionate and ecologically nuanced, this innovative collection bridges poetry and prose to interrogate the conditions necessary for survival.
Daisy Lafarge was born in Hastings and studied at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel, Paul, is forthcoming from Granta Books. She has published two pamphlets of poetry: understudies for air (Sad Press, 2017) and capriccio (SPAM Press, 2019), and her visual work has been exhibited in galleries such as Tate St Ives and Talbot Rice Gallery. She has received an Eric Gregory Award and a Betty Trask Award, and was runner-up in the 2018 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Daisy is currently working on Lovebug - a book about infection and intimacy - for a practice-based PhD at the University of Glasgow. Life Without Air is her first collection of poetry.