{"product_id":"i-could-not-ask-you-to","title":"I Could Not Ask You To","description":"\u003cp\u003eby Helena Fornells Nadal\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003eMouse Press\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003eSoftcover, 2025\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003e52 pages\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003e... those in the hot dark room\u003cbr\u003eare alive in – in frames\u003cbr\u003ePaper people of the oppressed\u003cbr\u003elanguage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                               (from 'Shadow's Shadow')\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHelena Fornells Nadal's I COULD NOT ASK YOU TO harnesses the self and its shadow to convey, or rather define, a completely unique way of seeing. Marked by a chatty causality that frequently leads to a sudden assertion - inarguable, deadpan statements - these are exploratory, improvisatory, elegiac poems, at once decisive and tentative, surgically precise and strategically unclear. ‘Cows. They stand there’, we are reassured, early on, before finding ourselves quickly transported to a moment ‘where you open \/ like a lotus \/ that has abandoned poetry, looked at it \/ from the outside’.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese pieces manage to evoke a double impression of an immediate and vivid reality, and an aerial, abstract perspective. They are attentive to landscape, friendship, loss, memory, the spaciousness and drift of a dream state, of lyric distraction, of consciousness-as-environment – and also how these experiences are intruded upon by the realities of a life ‘outgrown by weeds \/ in someone else’s muscular garden’. They are concerned, too, with metamorphosis and displacement, with how materials of the exterior are changed by being brought inside; similarly, by the ways in which words and voices change according to context, border crossings, (linguistic) colonisation. The result of encountering this work is a continuous sharpening of attention and feeling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; line-height: normal;\"\u003eHelena Fornells Nadal is a Catalan poet based in Edinburgh. She is currently engaged in research on the intersection between land politics and ecopoetics. Her work has appeared in publications including\u003ci\u003e DATABLEED\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMagma\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eGutter\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew Writing Scotland\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePROTOTYPE 6\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePropel\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54972747907406,"sku":null,"price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0837\/0680\/6606\/files\/kit24lta.png?v=1760368477","url":"https:\/\/eastbristolbooks.pro\/products\/i-could-not-ask-you-to","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}