Beyond

Fourth collection of poems from Sarah Wardle with a focus on recovery from mental health problems.

The poems of Beyond take the reader back to the optimism Sarah Wardle found as a youth when she left home and became involved in the world. They show her venturing forth again, embracing life to find that all was never lost, as she finally overcomes obstacles to hope and allegations of disability she had almost allowed herself to think were insurmountable and true. The book traces her rediscovery of agency, direction, energy and love, and charts her course once more into the future. It chronicles her journey out of a care system into which she should never have let herself get deeper and deeper locked, and will give hope to others who wish to finance and negotiate their way out of this trap to take responsibility for their own lives. As in her previous collections, Fields Away, Score! and A Knowable World, the setting of many of these poems is London, but in these pages she gains an appreciation and understanding of the variety this city witnesses and offers as never before. Beyond is an affirming book: even as the flesh begins to age, the heart grows in courage and enthusiasm, reinvigorated by the realisation of the fresh possibilities of effort and resilience, confidence and self-belief, commitment and conviction, mutual trust and shared affection, and the work to be done before we sleep.