Not in This World

Tracey Herd’s long awaited new collection was inspired by the late actress Elizabeth Hartman’s lifelong struggle with mental illness and by her own experience of living with clinical depression. The book examines the eternal bonds of love and friendship and the joys, grief and losses which imbue the human experience. These deeply personal yet vibrant poems also use the mediums of film, music and memory to create a collection which reverberates with pain and yet still finds small moments of happiness to savour. Not in This World, Tracey Herd’s third collection from Bloodaxe, was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice. Her debut, No Hiding Place (1996) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and her second collection, Dead Redhead (2001), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.