The Beautifully Worthless by Ali Liebegott

The Beautifully Worthless

Ali Liebegott

This book will suit those who like their reading to be intellectually and emotionally challenging. It is an extremely moving chronicle of loss and despair, leading to depression, sinking into madness. The story is told by means of a series of letters and some of the most intense poetry I've read in a very long time.

Extract

We're shipwrecked,do you hear me, they've stranded us in this country
given us only things to buy and jobs to earn them

the shoes of the dead float on the surface

and we the people have sunk to the bottom
our eyes straining past that blue-green surface
where our own voices chatter in the air above,
and invisible birds with bleached rib cages
hang in the sky like angel-ornaments


like thumbstacks pushed in a map
marking each new city we sought.
Parallels
  • Dart by Alice Oswald
  • All Points North by Simon Armitage
  • Nighthawks and Gas by Edward Hopper (Artist)