Aspects of Weightlessness - Songs of Loss and Longing: Poems by Anne Gruenberg, December 2024 to December 2025

Anne Gruenberg lives in a care home in West London. She is bed-bound and her only in-person contact is with staff members and occasional visitors. She types her poems, with difficulty, on her mobile phone; yet this is her third collection.

Poetry gives her a lifeline and a means of communicating with the outside world. Some of her poems speak of spiritual matters and have a translucent beauty; others are written in darker moods, expressing anger, regret, fear and grief. Death often features in this third collection, sometimes as an abstract concept, sometimes personified. Certain natural images appear repeatedly. Anne has a poetic voice of her own, but she also has many influences, including Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry and Walt Whitman.

Filled with pain and sorrow as well as moments of radiance, these poems shed light on Anne's rich inner life. She may be physically confined to a single room but her mind ranges widely. Her close friend Clare Park has responded to the poems with extraordinary photographs, many of movement artist Debbie Green. We hope this creative collaboration between four women will speak to readers and Anne's 'songs' will be heard.