Fathom
Free Association Press, 2019
The narrative of Fathom focuses on a tantalising fragment from the past. “I think I saw a lot of blood” and other odd surfacings from memory are explored through the work of psychoanalysis. Much like a kind of detective work to begin with, the narrative unravels the depths that appear after psychotic breakdown.
“Such a vivid, brave book... I haven’t made such an affecting journey through a mind for a long time. Extraordinary.”
“FATHOM delivers a remarkable story of trauma and the possibility of healing. The prose is easy to read as well as a literary achievement.”
“Such beauty, love and luminosity coming out of terror, darkness and silence or misrepresentation. And there’s so much poetry in the prose. ”
This Thing of Darkness
Forthcoming in 2024 Cover, Lynne Gibson. Permission.
This Thing of Darkness is a constantly floating narrative, blending dream, nightmare, memoir, theoretical enquiry (philosophical and psychoanalytical) in the form of a scrapbook. Wittgenstein's On Certainty provides, paradoxically, an anchor throughout the book. 'Paradoxically,' because his work profoundly questions any beliefs, assumptions, ideas or concepts of certainty.
This Thing of Darkness, which gained an Arts Council Award, is where image and text create overlapping metaphors; where colours symbolise layers of the conscious and unconscious mind in an almost playful attempt to understand the long-lasting and devastating impact of trauma.
“Remarkable. Highly intelligent. Very moving. A contemporary Jung’s Red Book…”
“Original, sad, fascinating, rich, thought-provoking on so many different levels…woven into such a cohesive and powerful
narrative… exceptional… an emotional and intellectual experience. Bravo!”
“Deeply layered with such a fine balance of heart and mind. A real achievement.”
“It is a haunting work, about haunting, with all the qualities of a terrifying ghost story. A terrific piece, so substantial in content and inventive in form.”
The Linguistics of Light
SALT MODERN POETS, 2009
The Linguistics of Light journeys from the north Norfolk coast of England across a vast emotional landscape to Greece and beyond.
These poems draw on science, on philosophy and on the bible for insight into our understanding of love, time and memory. Uncalled for, memory seems to: “come, flit land precise//on random things” so that moments of the past return again and again and become, in the poem ‘Garra Rock’, a kind of “blueprint of the future.”
“Lisa’s poetry is personal without self-absorption, clever without cleverness; her interests lie close to the heart. She writes with the clear eyes and head of an outsider.”
“In these powerful poems, Lisa Dart’s concern is with the weight of memory and the way it defines the self. Her talent is not only an ability to pinpoint such truths, but also to articulate them vividly. These poems are not overly philosophical; each presents a stunning moment from a lived life in eloquent language.”
The Self in a Photograph
tall lighthouse, 2005
Lisa’s first poetry pamphlet.
“A small but perfectly polished gem of a pamphlet containing just twelve poems, where ‘the self’ is explored not just through self absorption or endless introspection, but in terms of the fragility of memory, the everyday oddities an acute eye and ear will perceive, without shouting or fuss.”