If Swedish death cleaning means decluttering one’s own life to save loved ones the work, Alison Binney’s new collection is the opposite. Here, items from a parental home – chalk, spice jars, a Tupperware Party Susan – jostle for position in poems of intimacy, loss, and human connection. A shed becomes a metaphor for a father’s struggles with dementia, and a romantic relationship is kindled over chocolate mousse.
Alison Binney’s Mslexia prizewinning pamphlet Other Women’s Kitchens explored coming out and coming of age. In The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning, the focus widens but the poems still sing with tenderness, vitality and humour.