Half the Human Race

Half the Human Race includes poems from three previous collections, alongside new work reflecting and developing earlier themes of the lives of women, particularly those who are too often overlooked, unseen, hidden, or silenced – women made to feel “sometimes we take up too much room”.

There’s a Miracle, a Charm, a mythological Sea Orphan; but these poems are tangibly real, about real women’s lives. And as always, Susan Utting’s poems are proud lovers of sound, rhythm, of the cacophony of living. As Philip Gross wrote, reviewing her work, ‘Utting unashamedly loves language, and language seems to love her back.’

‘The new work in Susan Utting’s Half the Human Race explores the social and biological struggles of womanhood, yet for all the hardship, the poems return again and again to the thrills of being alive. Throughout the collection, Utting’s compelling rhythms and linguistic precision vivify the poems, bringing together the pleasures of living with the pleasures of reading.’ Carrie Etter

‘Utting animates life’s brittle edges and her poems carry unforced emotional weight.’ Moniza Alvi

‘Beyond the attractions of their sensuous diction her finest poems accomplish a strikingly steady focus, both compassionate and uncompromising.’ Elizabeth Garrett