Beyond Our Means

In this diverse, thoughtful and unusual new collection of poetry, prose, and 'reading the blue runes' of a beautiful-but-broken world, Simon Barrow explores themes ranging from love, loss, friendship and death to re-engagement with the natural environment, art as embodiment, the poetic form itself and (against the cacophony of our digital age) music. The 44 new poems in this volume are both deeply personal and invitingly universal. They are accompanied by prose reflections. The whole collection is framed by three essays exploring how we engage with time, how we choose to live or hide, and how we acknowledge our many dependences and contingencies in journeying through the world. "Having spent years heavily invested in the interrogations and commitments of politics, philosophy, ethics, and what passes for 'religion' in Christian and other senses, I wanted to stand back and think about our lives as shared gift and possibility. I hesitate to use the word 'spirituality' to describe this venture, because that can so easily degenerate into indulgent introspection. But re-engagement with all that lives, moves and has its being alongside us is certainly at the heart of these verses. In poetry and music we find fresh resources for flourishing in the face of pain and dislocation. My aim in this collection is to explore how this might be possible in different ways for each of us." (from the Introduction)