* Podcast version will appear on Reading in Bed for their June 2022 Episode due out at the start of week commencing 06 June 2022 *
Blurb:
'Blood
Sugar, Sex, Magic' is award-winning poet Sarah James’s exploration
of 40 years living with type one diabetes, a life-threatening
autoimmune condition that is now treatable, but remains
incurable.
The
collection tracks her personal journey from diagnosis, age six, to
adulthood, including the high and the low points, as well as the
further long-term health risks lurking in the background. These are
poems of pain, but also of love and beauty, taking in motherhood,
aging and establishing self-identity in a constantly updating world.
The route to some kind of acceptance and belonging may be troubled by
‘trying to escape’ but it also ‘holds | more light than your
eye | will ever know’
Strengths:
This is not a easy flowery poetry book to read that is sure not because it is a book about a very serious topic indeed people need to be aware off – Diabetes (Something I can relate to myself after getting registered with Diabetes when I was 39) and the courage writing this book is admirable and it is difficult for somebody in my situation to find fault with this.
Take Page 21 of the book this – the title of the piece ‘listen, the silence is in pain’ which is heavy hitting enough in itself but within this title are crossed out words ‘difficult, hidden, disability’ a clear point to show that Diabetes is a invisible condition which you can’t see – something you can’t see on somebody walking down the street.
When I contracted Diabetes at 39 in 2011, I remember being told it was invisible, be it rare for a adult to get this as it was usually more something older people got (My Dad got it when he was 63) or children got (A dear friend who lives around the back of me got it when it was 7), something Sarah got when he was with the haunting poem ‘Admitted, Nov, 30 1981’ aged 6: diabetes, mellitus’ when the image of glass syringe is terrifying as it shows how much society has moved on in just a generation ago to plastic needles and containers and the problems I had at 39 learning how to use a plastic needle , a glass one scares the shit out of me thinking about it.
One of my favourite pieces in the book is ‘Freshly Baked’ which is a piece that brings hope in the middle of the book which takes about a ordinary memory of baking with her mother which most children do with their parents at that age are given higher emotions considering what they would all be going through.
Weaknesses:
The book isn’t a easy read like I said and the book has loads of frankly quite upsetting pieces like in it which I suggest you just go and read for yourself. It is not a poetry book I feel that can be read in gulps and chunks, perhaps read a piece and come back to the book a few days later.
This is a book that looks at the reality of getting and living with Diabetes
and makes you look at it from a different angle altogether.
8/10
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