Suggested Breathing
Sarer Scotthorne
148mm x 210mm
32 page pamphlet
£8.50 + p&p
to buy a copy contact Sarer with your order details here
On Saturday June 22 Sarer Scotthorne launched her new pamphlet Suggested Breathing with an event at 25 Wathen Road, Bristol BS6 5BY. There was tea, coffee, poetry, performances, readings, books for sale, flowers, cats, bubbly, popcorn & some martial arts.
“Conceived between the distancing effects of the first lockdown and the immediacy of an embodied Chi Kung practice, Sarer Scotthorne’s Suggested Breathing connects the muscles, blood, birds and rain of nature with the Zoom and doom reports of the pandemic. Suggested Breathing seems to come out of nowhere, or from here, there and everywhere, and it goes off in all directions but is held in unity by representations of the regular, disciplined practice and teaching of Chi Kung. The poems further dialogue with a diverse group of reference points, ranging from Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven through Richard Brautigan to Thich Nhat Hanh (and many more). Amongst all of the diversity of this little book, Suggested Breathing offers us a clear view of the “fertile void” in which things grow, breathe, and decay.”
- Peter Jaeger
“I followed the Zoom sessions every day, to split the pack, deal with the cracks and, moreover, the sly slickness of it’s up there / it’s down there / it’s everywhere-ness, the blench from outer sphere, imp eachment . . . Suggested Breathing: a vehicle of introspection, a call to rivet-in on inner chaos with multi-storey awareness and Karuṇā, to thrust a mirror up to dissonance, to notice fragmentation. But just notice. Scotthorne shapes reflective paws to bear witness to interconnectivity; challenges us to crumb-cut assumptions, face off bias, bloom our percpicacity. I followed the Zoom sessions every day, to eagle-eye the chaos as we screech donuts in the carpark at the Theatre of the Absurd. Put on your dancing feet, Suggested Breathing is peak attentive praxis.”
- Paul Hawkins
Also by Sarer Scotthorne:
The Blood House
Semblance
Sarer is a poet and a physical performer, she played Gregor in her twenties in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, shape shifting into a young man, a beetle and back to herself. She co-founded Hesterglock Press and is currently associate editor. Her publications are The Blood House, Semblance and she has co-edited a number of anthologies including Writing Utopia 2020. Sarer is researching poetics and Mindfulness for her PhD at Surrey University. She has been employed teaching Wutan Chinese martial arts in Bristol for thirty-five years. Her full collection of visual and word poetry Mutter is due for publication in 2025.
- Peter Jaeger
“I followed the Zoom sessions every day, to split the pack, deal with the cracks and, moreover, the sly slickness of it’s up there / it’s down there / it’s everywhere-ness, the blench from outer sphere, imp eachment . . . Suggested Breathing: a vehicle of introspection, a call to rivet-in on inner chaos with multi-storey awareness and Karuṇā, to thrust a mirror up to dissonance, to notice fragmentation. But just notice. Scotthorne shapes reflective paws to bear witness to interconnectivity; challenges us to crumb-cut assumptions, face off bias, bloom our percpicacity. I followed the Zoom sessions every day, to eagle-eye the chaos as we screech donuts in the carpark at the Theatre of the Absurd. Put on your dancing feet, Suggested Breathing is peak attentive praxis.”
- Paul Hawkins
Also by Sarer Scotthorne:
The Blood House
Semblance
Sarer is a poet and a physical performer, she played Gregor in her twenties in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, shape shifting into a young man, a beetle and back to herself. She co-founded Hesterglock Press and is currently associate editor. Her publications are The Blood House, Semblance and she has co-edited a number of anthologies including Writing Utopia 2020. Sarer is researching poetics and Mindfulness for her PhD at Surrey University. She has been employed teaching Wutan Chinese martial arts in Bristol for thirty-five years. Her full collection of visual and word poetry Mutter is due for publication in 2025.