Anne Ryland’s third collection begins and ends with the human body, honouring its traumas and miracles. Meditations on spirituality and mortality are suffused with a gentle humour. There is continued searching for a homeland, for unknown homes that evoke longing, and for the vitality to be discovered in ruins. Versions of haunting poems about exile and displacement by the German poet Hilde Domin are woven into the book. Unsung heroes and heroines step forward, opening doors to vividly imagined worlds. This is a collection of quiet tragedies and unashamedly small joys.
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"...a book of personal wisdom, physicality and delight." Chris Beckett
‘There is a fierce and unpredictable momentum to Unruled Journal that sweeps you along, marvelling at Anne Ryland’s inventiveness, range and linguistic panache. Her voice is generous and idiosyncratic, often mischievously so. There are also deeply affecting poems (including excellent versions of German and Polish originals) haunted by history, particularly 20th century Europe’s tragic inheritance. Gloriously, at the end of the collection, a newfound love of running offers release and redemption, captured in poems of such exuberance and transformative energy you feel you are also running through the border.’ Linda France
‘This is a richly integrated new collection from Anne Ryland, full of subtle inter-weavings. I’m particularly struck by how the themes echo each other in an unforced way throughout; those of home, of borders, of identity, of personal and wider history, and also the theme of language itself and the boundaries it can break. The poems are unusually varied in tone, moving with ease through the earthy, the poignant, the humorous and the unsettling. Unruled Journal is deeply rewarding, far-reaching and humane.’ Moniza Alvi