The Telling by Julia Webb is a distinctive and acutely-observed
collection of poems that unravel the intricacies at the heart of human
relationships - an insistent, quietly fierce tour de force from this
Forward Prize commended poet. Moving and dark, we uncover the things
that go unspoken between people despite their closeness.
In turning her forensic focus on what makes us human, and in particular
what it is that glues us together or causes us to come apart, Julia
Webb's poetry examines the wreckage of complex lives to understand where
the fault lines and fractures lie. What are the stories that construct
our families and relationships, and who gets to tell them? Can we trust
the stories we inherit, and what happens when we recover the right to
tell things for ourselves? These compelling, taut poems crackle with the
electricity of the untold - of flawed humans and hurt, of daring and
being, of reclaiming and persisting.
