A Body Made of You

Melissa Lee-Houghton

Filed under Books, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Poetry collections

£8.99

I do not write to you, but of you,
because the paper that we write on
is our perishable skin.

Your photograph is inky and your face
chalked in by, honestly — honesty. You are
absolutely sure and absolutely not ready

to give. Your eyes see nothing of the dark
archipelago about your head, the lies
and the whispers surely love curtails —

that swim about your teeth and the years
that make your skin warm and then less warm.
All you know is that you need someone —

what a wedding band can do for the passage
of a girl who slips out of her knickers and into
her own despair, like there’s nothing there.

(‘Carbon’)

Melissa Lee Houghton’s A Body Made of You is a series of poems written for other writers, artists, strangers, lovers and friends. The process began by interviewing each muse, and then working from photographs and in a couple of cases, paintings of them or by them. Charged with sexuality and an uncomfortable sense of the strange, this debut collection introduces a powerful new voice in poetry.

Cover design | Henry Simmonds

Reviews

“Melissa Lee-Houghton’s highly original and innovative debut might be considered an epistolary tour-de-force, split into fifteen sections dealing with Others identified only by their forename. We begin to see those named through the refractions and concerns of the poems, as they conjure relationships and exchanges, memories and transgressions in strikingly off-kilter, compelling narratives that often contain piercingly memorable lines. The final Other of the collection is actually a sublime self-portrait played out in the form of an interview and indeed the whole book can be seen as an extended interview or interrogation of intimacy. It is an extraordinary achievement and a must-read book for 2011.”
Chris Hamilton-Emery

“Melissa Lee-Houghton’s A Body Made Of You is a restless book; images pile high full of a deep questioning of the friends, lovers and strangers who populate these poems. This collection is an intense ‘naming of parts’ made of body, soul, and memory.”
John Siddique

“I feel alive when I read Melissa’s poetry. It is raw, anthropological and sassy. Sympathetic studies of character, gender and address that poke, prod, irritate and echo. She has a penetrative gaze, a deep compassion and turn of phrase that recalls Alan Bennett. Her dramatic glimpses of being are full of honesty, wit and understanding. Pour yourself a favourite tipple and imbibe. You will feel the range of psychology; her emotional and poetic register and be in awe at its resonance. You will see her double vision.”
David Caddy

“[Melissa Lee Houghton's] words are soaked in this tension between body and mind, between who we are supposed to be and the god-awful gorgeousness of who we really are.”
The Hipster Book Club