Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poets and Poems: Denise Riley and “Say Something Back”

By Glynn Young 3 Comments

Young woman Denise Riley Say Something Back

It was 15 years ago that I first heard an expression that struck me as almost uncommonly rude. Little did I know how commonly rude it would become.

I was sitting in a conference room in a northern suburb of Chicago, called in as a consultant to help plan a company conference that management hoped would be a game changer. My role at the planning meeting was to listen closely, take notes, and gather information for what would be several speeches at the meeting.

About 10 people were clustered around a table, helping to plan the conference. They were talking about each day’s agenda, outside speakers, and the reasons why this conference was so important. After the executive with the highest title talked about what his hopes for the meeting were, one manager expressed her own hopes, beginning her words with “And the other thing is.”

That expression did two things. First, it dampened any other opinions. She was implying there were only two things here—the boss’s thoughts and her own. Second, it told me that she hadn’t really been listening, only looking for the opportunity to express her own opinion.

It’s unfortunate that it and its variation “And another thing,” became a common expression used in general conversation.

British poet Denise Riley examines the idea of communication in her latest collection of 45 poems, Say Something Back. She considers communication from the perspectives of both talking and listening; communication with the world around us; communication through stories, lyrics, and songs; communication from what we see and read; and even communication while being alone. The poems are tied together by a central theme of maternal grief. Grief comes from loss, and loss can change everything, including not only how we respond to the world around us but also how we communicate with that world and understand what the world is trying to say to us.

Denise Riley Say Something BackUnder the answering sky

I can manage being alone,
can pace out convivial hope
across my managing ground.
Someone might call, later.

What do the dead make of us
that we’d flay ourselves trying
to hear them though they may
sign at such close loneliness.

I would catch, not my echo,
but their guarantee that this
bright flat blue is a mouth
of the world speaking back.

There is no depth to that blue.
It won’t ‘bring the principle
of darkness with it’, but hums
in repose, as radiant static.

Her poems display a sharpness and a crispness of language, perhaps not surprising for someone who has not written not only several poetry collections but also several books about language and words. (The collection even includes a poem entitled “And another thing,” which both is and isn’t about that expression I have so much trouble with.)

Denise Riley Say Something Back

Denise Riley

She includes short poems of seven lines and longer poems; one long poem comprises 20 smaller ones. Her range of subject and metaphor is impressive—seasons, nature, people, trees, Greek myth, fables, and geography are only a few she turns her eye on, with that theme of grief as a backdrop.

Riley has published several previous collections of poetry, including Marxism for Infants (1977), Dry Air (1985), Mop Mop Georgette: New and Selected Poems (1993), Stair Spirit (1992), Selected Poems (2000), and a long essay that combines prose and poetry, Time Lived, Without Its Flow (2012). She is also the author of War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother (1983); The Words of Selves (2000); Am I That Name: Feminism and the Category of Women in History (2003); and Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect (2005). She is currently a professor of poetry and the history of ideas at the University of East Anglia.

Say Something Back was nominated for the Forward Prize for best poetry collection in 2016. It’s a collection filled with poems of carefully considered subject and theme, almost a kind of plea to listen to and hear each other, expressed with a precision and vividness of language that is remarkable.

And the other thing is not …

Browse more poets and poems

Photo by Sagisen, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining, and Poetry at Work.

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - May 22, 2025
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025

Filed Under: article, book reviews, Britain, Grief Poems, Poems, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Bethany R. says

    May 9, 2017 at 10:46 am

    Powerful line about that depthless blue that,

    “…hums
    in repose, as radiant static.”

    I like what you say, Glynn, about how grief and loss change how we listen and talk to the world. It’s a relandscpaing.

    Reply
  2. Tammy says

    May 13, 2017 at 4:55 pm

    I have never stopped and thought of that saying “and the other thing is” or “and another thing” was so rude. You made me stop and think on those sayings. I say them regularly and never really thought that is was such a thought stopping saying.

    The poem you shared is so deep. You can feel it so deep within the soul. Thank you for sharing it.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. About Poets │ DENISE RILEY, poet and philosopher │ A Śort Spel says:
    June 11, 2018 at 8:08 am

    […] BRITISH COUNCILDAVE POEMS: SAY SOMETHING BACKFORWARD ARTS: SAY SOMETHING BACKGOOD READS: SAY SOMETHING BACKICALONDON MAGAZINE: SAY SOMETHING BACKLRB: A PART SONGMAMSIE: TIME LIVED WITHOUT ITS FLOWNATION: SAY SOMETHING BACKPOETRY FOUNDATIONPNPOETRY SOCIETY: AFTER THE RAINREALITY STREETTWEETSPEAK: SAY SOMETHING BACK WIKIPEDIA […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Donna Hilbert on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • L.L. Barkat on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - Tweetspeak Poetry on Love, Etc.: Poems of Love, Laughter, Longing & Loss
  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy