With a mere day away from the much-anticipated release of Gillian Prew’s latest collection, In the Broken Things, a unique publication that is a dichotomy of dreams and abstracts, we’ve decided to share the good word about what some are saying. Gillian Prew’s In the Broken Things will be available tomorrow, May 30. In the mean time, may the words of Mc Aloran and Whitely compensate your thirst:

In the Broken Things
Review by Petra Whitley

In the Broken Things by Gillian Prew transports the reader into two distinct territories with an uncanny skill to dig a deep truth out with unique strokes of language. ‘Dreams’ brings to life the darkly pulsing shapes of memories in subconscious mind, Prew paints them on the walls of the mind as Goya painted his Black Paintings on the walls of his house. The next territory the reader enters are ‘abstracts’ which examine the trinity of major themes: life-love-death in absolute honesty sharpened to an astounding precision. It’s a psyche-mapping, searching, questioning and ultimately enriching the reader by witnessing her reflections, and in turn finding themselves observing their own inner cores. Prew is a poet of stunning brilliance with a unique voice that stands out in modern poetry and is one that must be heard.
 

Petra Whiteley is an author of ‘The Nomad’s Trail’ (Ettrick Forest Press, 2008), ‘The Moulding of Seers’ (Shadow Archer Press, 2009), a regular writer for The Glasgow Review, a literary magazine, and a reviewer/interviewer for Reflections of Darkness, a dark music webzine.

In the Broken Things
Review by Michael Mc Aloran

‘Dreams’- In this first section, Gillian Prew becomes -whether consciously or not- the seer-poet, unable to close her eyes, even in her dreams-states. Her language is that of surreal introspection, of one who suffers yet seems unabashed, painfully aware of the ‘drowning into shadow’, and the impending onslaught of death. She confronts love and its complexities and infirmities, her voice at once certain, then unsure. Prew herself states that ‘ Love is the death of surety’…She is indeed a haunted soul, yet she forever redeems herself in verse. The beautiful simplicity of her language and imagery almost have a child-like quality to them, snatched from the nothingness/ the Unknown….

’Abstracts’ – ‘I want to crumble alone. It is the only way to gather the pieces with dignity.’, Prew states…The pieces in this section are seemingly more off-hand/ playful, a lethargic yet acerbic two-fingered salute at death, insignificance, being, and Prew’s geist amalgamates, takes force, almost slashing through all, to end in an angry compassion and the resignation of love…

This is a fantastic book, written by a highly gifted and important poet of our times, who will no doubt shame many a one into paralysis at the thought that they had ever lifted a pen…

Michael Mc Aloran is the author of”‘In The Black Cadaver Light’ (Poetry Monthly Press), ‘The Rapacious Night’ (Calliope Nerve Media), “The Redundant Pulse” (Back Pack Press), and ‘The Death-Streaked Air” (Virgogray Press) and several more collections of poetry.