'‘It is poetically satisfying when gutsy is elegant and outspoken is gentle, when the snake nerve writhes with realisation so that wonder is reborn accompanied by the music of new knowledge, by the rewards of a past paid for and a future fortified. The maturity of these poems, combined with the poet’s belief in the redemptive power of poetry, is a cause for celebration.’ - Syd Harrex (praise for Shadow Selves)' (Publication summary)
'In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the character Helmholtz Watson muses: “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced”¹. Deb Stewart’s The White Line of Language is full of words that do just this. Honed words, skilfully arranged into just the right orders, creating just the right shapes for ears as eyes, aloud as on the page. Words that press hard against silence and space, against one another, language, limits, the unsayable and still-to-be-said. Words that sing and cry and hope and ache and wonder, unfolding always into more – and more. Words to read again and again, always and endlessly for the very first time.' (Introduction)
'In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the character Helmholtz Watson muses: “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced”¹. Deb Stewart’s The White Line of Language is full of words that do just this. Honed words, skilfully arranged into just the right orders, creating just the right shapes for ears as eyes, aloud as on the page. Words that press hard against silence and space, against one another, language, limits, the unsayable and still-to-be-said. Words that sing and cry and hope and ache and wonder, unfolding always into more – and more. Words to read again and again, always and endlessly for the very first time.' (Introduction)
