Hemispheres is a series of meditations on the tension between public and private voices. It is also a story of a cloistered life, where contemplation in a fixed community or in self-imposed isolation can go hand in hand with altered states of consciousness. Questions emerge. What does it mean to live and to understand one's own reality? Can anything be fully conveyed except by direct experience? And in the search for spiritual meaning and hidden truths, what dynamics are able to persuade us of what is real and what is not?

Treating the text as a living piece of work, the narrative is supplemented with brief notations and illuminations, a witness to events as they occurred later, or to others.

Nic Stringer is a writer who also creates visual and sound compositions. A day that you happen to know, published by Guillemot Press in 2017, was highly commended in the Forward Prizes for best first collection. Nic organises events, collaborative projects and exhibitions as part of Corrupted Poetry.

Hemispheres has been illustrated by Chloe Bonfield. Chloe’s other poetry illustration work includes Marine Objects / Some Language by Suzannah V Evans (Guillemot, 2020) and Cut Flowers by Harriet Tarlo. It has been printed on Mohawk Superfine with Freelife Merida and Ispira cover and end papers.

ISBN 978-1-913749-16-3 / 184 x 140mm / 62 pages / colour illustrations