Dide – Making Sense [2023]

‘You don’t recognise what’s new until you trip over it. So many poems are busily trying to sound like whatever trend is just about to be over, but these poems seem to come out of nowhere. Strange they are, in the ways they use metaphor, in the ways they remake the world; but most of what they are is true, brave and touching. I didn’t see them coming.’
Mark Waldron

‘Throughout this gorgeous debut collection, Dide’s unique ability to create images that startle, shock and surprise enthrals – they will make you look at the world afresh. She says it best herself: “any minute of any hour, you make me put eyes in my eyes”.’
Rishi Dastidar

‘An unflinching and unique body of work sharing perspectives on Borderline Personality Disorder and Autism and what it is for a female to be othered in a world of neuro-uniformity. Dide’s voice is cool and exacting in the articulation of society’s double standards, in calling out power structures, how othering is a methodology of control and how early life experiences are carelessly overlooked within the labelling/categorising of human behavioural tendencies. Despite being political in this way, the collection is deeply personal and often shocking in candour and philosophical eloquence: “cortisol and testosterone helped annihilate whole cities”. Language is lifted out of tropes and refreshed to the point where synaesthesia (as reported by the narrator) becomes actualised. A subtle seam of homage to the arts and music as a form of nurture runs through the work providing further expansion of discourse. Whilst this debut is serious at core, a skilled playfulness with form and curiosity makes it wholly compelling, allowing the reader to come away buoyant and altered, paying closer attention to the world: “some ailments radiate an unusual heat, others an ache, others a stab, and others still, pressure of a still day.”.’
Rushika Wick