Surviving Death

This exceptional collection of poems takes readers on an unforgettable journey through life's mysteries and wonders. Her words are a bridge between the tangible and the intangible, allowing us to explore the delicate balance between life's fleeting moments and the eternal.Each poem is a brushstroke in a portrait of life, offering a unique perspective that lingers in the mind long after reading.
This poetry collection, meticulously curated by Alan Parry, reflects the commitment of The Broken Spine to quality literature and its dedication to fostering diversity and inclusivity within the literary world.
Advance Praise:
'Houbolt is a poet with a rare gift for insight, and she hands it to us smiling, at once wry and tender and always with an intuitive wisdom that feels personal and very real. To fall into step with her work, with its delighted reverence for the intimate detail and mess of the world, the natural world and its overlap with what humans wreak, and our own internal navigation, is to forget you're reading poetry at all. Her works are creatures far too busy living, out there in the sun and rain with skin humming and eyes open, to be aware that they're on a page, and it's this sense of brimming-aliveness that we carry away from any encounter with her skill. The generosity of spirit inside turns of phrase that make simple language build new images and lateral perspective is infectious and inviting, and every poem turns the stone to reveal a small and perfect surprise. Magic beneath in common places, in the infinite drive, in the human desire to hope that is the invisible engine powering all she writes. .... You cannot read this poet and walk back into the mundane unchanged, untouched by an awareness that everything you do, every interaction you have with the world, is a spell that gives and takes. That everything is transient and precarious and yet everything endures. Houbolt's deceptively deep refrains are a recipe for interaction with a world that pushes back but cannot take us down, and an antidote for the bitterness when it's tried.....'
Ankh Spice, author of The Water Engine 'Kyla Houbolt's poems wouldabeen so punk 40 years ago, .30 years ago Kyla's collection, Surviving Death, would have crowned the Goth World. Never emo; dear God, never that. The poems in Surviving Death never foam from the trite or the emotionally derivative; and though her poems stalk death they are never haunted, shunted, or stunted by it. This collection pulls back the shroud of death, but not for the sake of being poetically macabre. Kyla Houbolt examines the fabrics of existence simply to ask it, "is that what you're wearing out tonight?" With Surviving Death, on the backside of our tombstones Kyla Houboult sits, planting foamflowers, and embracing Life in every stanza.'
upfromsumdirt, author of Deifying A Total Darkness 'Kyla's poems aren't lengthy but they are, like a Time Lord's Tardis, so much bigger on the inside. This collection has an urgency which is packed with the most startling juxtapositions. The one poem, Fruit, contains the lines, The dancer lifts her leg/high in the air./The dog only lifts his/so far. Two images not many of us would think as an obvious pairing and the impact is thrilling. These poems give you much to reflect upon. They are invitations to a conversation. They leave you with questions. They muse upon how we live in the presence of death, how we live without destroying nature. There is an incisive wit to this writing. In the poem, Bones, the bones of the dead ask to be remembered but then one asks something different, Can you take this arm bone and make a flute please? That's precisely what Kyla has done in this powerful collection.'
Beth Brooke, author of A Landscape With Birds