the words of others are all we have

The Words of Others are All We Have is a poetry conversation between Louise Machen and J. Daniel West illustrating working class landscapes in an era of gentrification and widening social disparity.

This collection traverses the topographies of the city and its surrounding suburbs, examining the contradictions that arise in the relationships between people and the places that provide a familiar comfort whilst surreptitiously encouraging a coalescence with the inability to escape economic and emotional deprivation.

These poems are rooted in the everyday, in the discord between the metropolis and the natural world, in the importance of our ’root networks’ and the realities of class restriction. From terraced streets to high-rise flats and glass monoliths to nostalgic landmarks, this conversation of poetry discusses experiences of childhood, adolescence and aging in the urban sprawl of the north.

＂Set in a vivid landscape of urban decay, a brutal Eden where paradise isn’t lost, it was just never an option. These ’conversation’ poems rise above their beginnings like a plume: part smoke, part accusation and part defiance and without sentimentality into vital poetry written as a remembrance and as a warning to the rest of the lifestyle obsessed world that we were here and some still are.＂

＂With relentless ＂fire and fury＂, this uncompromising pamphlet of poetry centres on issues of social, economic and cultural deprivation in Manchester. The poems, which highlight poor living standards and the ＂gritty filth＂ of environments, also focuses intently on adverse life experiences and lack of opportunities of an underclass and working class struggling at the edge; all the more tragic because of the gentrified communities around these poor estates - the distant ＂sun-kissed monoliths＂ of new housing development, which sharply contrast with poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. In focusing on deep inequalities, the two writers in the collaborative work shine an uncomfortable but necessary light on the grime of neglected areas and the insurmountable challenges people born without privilege face in trying to break out of the poverty trap. This no-holes barred account, rendered with sharp poeticism, makes gripping reading.＂

＂The words of others are all we have is an aptly-named pamphlet, as each poem perfectly speaks in conversation with one another in a way that harmonises in a beautiful melody throughout.

The pamphlet is a delve into gritty urban settings honeyed with nostalgia but sharpened by hindsight, and we are warmed by personal moments of exploration of both what constitutes as ’home’, and the relationships that define and refine us from those places. From synthetic underpass lights to rows of Primarks and John Lewises, there is an acute ache of familiarity, along with the throb of a home altered beyond recognition.

These powerful poems will leave the reader bathing in that ’fire and flood’ of yesteryears long gone, leaving the inevitable question; where does that now leave us?＂

＂Urgent, vivid, and important poetry from perspectives that tend to be silenced, grasping, among other things, the entrapments of poverty, and the slipperiness of memory.＂