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CLAUDIA COURT

Claudia Court spent her childhood in rural Sussex and discovered poetry at a young age. Much of her career was spent as a journalist – in Fleet Street and later with the BBC. In her debut collection, she explores the energy behind words and silence. These are poignant poems about the powerful human need to communicate, even against the odds; about language, about listening and about love.

‘Claudia Court is a striking new voice – lyrical, spare, mysterious, presenting richly-crafted poems informed by clarity and feeling.’ — Katherine Gallagher

​"Claudia Court has a real talent for representing the way people speak, but also, choose not to speak, to each other, as well as themselves." — Sam Smith 

HOW TO PUNCTUATE A SILENCE
by Claudia Court

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‘How can words clothe the abyss of silence and comfort us in times of need? In her poetry Court uses words, by turns witty and poignant, that weave together the experience of love and loss, pain and pleasure, ordinary and extraordinary moments. Often in life, as Eliot says, we have the experience but miss the meaning; holding onto a strong cord of hope Court’s poems help us find our way through the labyrinth of life.’
                                                          — Colin Pink

‘The interplay between silence and the power of words and how both are equal partners strikes a wonderful balance in Claudia Court’s debut collection. Court is adept at the haiku, but every poem has the power of a haiku at its heart with words stripped back to communicate what is absolutely necessary to let the silence shine through and offer the power of meditation. These are unrushed poems that demand our attention through their quality of address, their clear-eyed look at life and for the silences that are as alive and as varied as the words which precede and follow in an intricate and absorbing dance.’
                                                           — Lisa Kelly

‘Claudia Court addresses the subjects of love, loss and illness with sensitivity and wit. Her empathy is apparent in poems about others’ problems and in tender portraits of her family that don’t gloss over difficulties. Whether in free verse, syllabics, haiku or rhyme, her poetry impresses with its honesty, clarity and economy; ‘words recognise my hurt, they soothe me’, she writes, and her words do the same for us.’
                                                              — Stephen Claughton

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ISBN 978-1-907435-91-1
2020
Paperback, 148 x 210mm
52 pages.
RRP £8.00

Now available from the author: 
[email protected]

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SCHOOL MILK by Claudia Court

In this collection Claudia Court remembers her education at two very different convent schools in the 1960's, first as a 'Pint-sized' little girl and then as a 'Full cream' boarder.

In twenty short, incisive poems, (written in triadic couplets, a new form invented by the poet Colin Pink) Claudia narrates some key episodes of the schooldays she experienced first as an innocent five-to-eleven-year old, and then as a teenager. Many of these poems had her editor howling with laughter! 

Claudia has a very English gift for understatement and 'turns a poem on a sixpence', often on its last line, so that we burst out laughing with surprise at the absurdity or simply the truth that she reveals.

The laughter is never cruel — Claudia's observations are honest and direct, but always understanding and kind to her protagonists, aware and sensitive to their motivations, whether they're fellow pupils or the adults in charge of them. This is a book to treasure and re-read.

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ISBN 978-1-907435-
2022
Paperback, 130 x 200mm
36 pages.
RRP £8.00
March 2022

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