| The Patient suffers a brain haemorrhage. Small World grows out of the days before and after. It has the authority of lived experience, beginning with what Price dubs existential family poems: honed, lyrical, they explore the dynamics of modern life. Prices poems observe and reflect, revisiting and deepening the themes of his earlier books. These poems prepare us for the moment when the poets lover, the Patient, is afflicted. At times angry and despairing, the poems evoke hospital conditions and social attitudes to the ill, but the main focus is on the intricate reality of living day to day, trying to bring memory to bear on the future: Prices produces a multi-layered collection that builds a rich portrait of love under almost intolerable pressure. |
