To be alive is to be inside the wave always travelling until it breaks & is gone These poems are concerned with the borderline between the living & the dead
- the underworld & the human living world
- & the exquisitely intense being of both They possess a spare eloquent lyricism as they explore the bliss & anguish of the voyage Inside the Wave is Helen Dunmore's first new poetry book since The Malarkey (2012) whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition Her other books include Glad of These Times (2007) & Out of the Blue Poems 1975-2001 (2001) a comprehensive selection drawing on seven previous collections Her final poem ' Hold out your arms' written shortly before her death & not included in the first printing of Inside the Wave has now been added to the reprint