Running Upon The Wires by Kate Tempest

It would be a challenge to not relate to Running Upon The Wires, which plots the universal map of heartbreak and eventual optimism of new love. This intimate narrative is split into three sections: firstly 'the end’, poems which expose moments of desolate pain that inevitably accompany a break-up. The subsequent sections, 'the middle' and 'the beginning', navigate the unchartered territory of a new relationship, fully equipped with messy yearnings for still-lingering lost love.

While Running Upon The Wires is a cathartic and deeply moving read – a go-to for the love-stricken and heartbroken – Tempest’s best poems come from moments out in the world. At your mother’s funeral and Venice Beach are two such instances, where the poet’s voice is not just used to vocalise her internal speech. These examples have powerful narratives which better demonstrate a deepening romantic partnership and the no man’s land that is a heart on the cusp of healing.

The title poem reflects on the ‘you’ that signifies both lost love and new love. ‘Yes, we do repeat…/ This does not mean/ we are not new/ You are not her./ This is not then.’ Tempest leaves her reader with this melancholic hope: it’s possible that heartbreak may forever be on the horizon, but new lovers offer a chance to break this cycle.