Running Upon The Wires

‘Running Upon The Wires’ is Kae Tempest’s first book of free-standing poetry since the acclaimed ‘Hold Your Own’. In a beautifully varied series of formal poems, spoken songs, fragments, vignettes and ballads, Tempest charts the heartbreak at the end of one relationship and the joy at the beginning of a new love; but also tells us what happens in between, when the heart is pulled both ways at once. ‘Running Upon The Wires’ is, in a sense, a departure from their previous work, and unashamedly personal and intimate in its address – but will also confirm Tempest’s role as one of our most important poetic truth–tellers: it will be no surprise to readers to discover that she’s no less a direct and unflinching observer of matters of the heart than they are of social and political change. ‘Running Upon The Wires’ is a heartbreaking, moving and joyous book about love, in its endings and in its beginnings.