This Thing of Blood & Love

Lesley Saunders is the author of several poetry collections, most recently 'This Thing of Blood & Love' (Two Rivers Press 2022) and, with artist Rebecca Swainston, 'Days of Wonder' (Hippocrates Press 2021), a document of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her English translations – including the poem that won the 2016 Stephen Spender award – of renowned Portuguese poet Maria Teresa Horta were published as 'Point of Honour' (Two Rivers Press 2019). Lesley works on collaborative projects with visual artists, sculptors, musicians, photographers and dancers as well as other poets. Otherwise, she is a visiting professor at UCL Institute of Education, London, and an honorary research fellow at Oxford University Department of Education.

Lesley Saunders’ poetry in ‘This Thing of Blood & Love’ operates in a space somewhere between science and mystery, carnality and spirit. In its enigmatic scenes it is sometimes reminiscent of unsettling, dreamlike painting – yet this is not painting, but poetry, linguistically rich, made of language at once sensuous and subtle. It is highly aware of the human body, of the materiality of flesh, and equally of the psyche. It is poetry with a sophisticated, up to the minute quality, knowledgeable about our lifestyles and technologies, and alive to modern sciences of the mind. Saunders is a serious poet with a light touch, who marvels at the constitution of human physical being and the labyrinthine ways of consciousness. She is alert to the apocalypse we have invited to destroy our fragile world. She skates on thin ice, stylishly, gracefully, aware of the risks. Her enigmatic work does not lend itself to summary. It can only be entered by a reader prepared to share an exhilarating dance on the ice. — Jeremy Hooker