The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning by Alison Binney PRE-ORDER
Published 14th April 2025. Available for pre-order.
Swedish death cleaning is the art of de-cluttering, often in late middle age, so that your loved ones won't be left to do it after you die. Alison Binney however experienced the opposite, on the day she opened her father's garage door to find a floor-to-ceiling heap of cardboard boxes, jam jars, paint pots, carpet rolls and garden hoses. With her father diagnosed with Alzheimer's and recently admitted to residential care, she began an eight-month process of sorting and clearing her family home – a task which proved both daunting and therapeutic. The collection begins in the clutter and chaos of an abandoned family home, before shifting into memories of childhood. This remembering in the face of parental memory loss is a reclamation. Through the poems, we follow a journey from adolescence to adulthood - experiencing the complexities of coming out, work, love and caring for an aging parent. Poems rich with plants, trees, birds, and household objects uncover poignant moments of human connection. A shed becomes a metaphor for a father's struggles with dementia; an aloe vera plant represents a school community; and a romantic relationship is kindled over chocolate mousse. Alison Binney's Mslexia prize-winning debut pamphlet Other Women's Kitchens explored experiences of coming out and coming of age. In The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning the focus widens, but the poems sing with the same tenderness, vitality and humour.
Swedish death cleaning is the art of de-cluttering, often in late middle age, so that your loved ones won't be left to do it after you die. Alison Binney however experienced the opposite, on the day she opened her father's garage door to find a floor-to-ceiling heap of cardboard boxes, jam jars, paint pots, carpet rolls and garden hoses. With her father diagnosed with Alzheimer's and recently admitted to residential care, she began an eight-month process of sorting and clearing her family home – a task which proved both daunting and therapeutic. The collection begins in the clutter and chaos of an abandoned family home, before shifting into memories of childhood. This remembering in the face of parental memory loss is a reclamation. Through the poems, we follow a journey from adolescence to adulthood - experiencing the complexities of coming out, work, love and caring for an aging parent. Poems rich with plants, trees, birds, and household objects uncover poignant moments of human connection. A shed becomes a metaphor for a father's struggles with dementia; an aloe vera plant represents a school community; and a romantic relationship is kindled over chocolate mousse. Alison Binney's Mslexia prize-winning debut pamphlet Other Women's Kitchens explored experiences of coming out and coming of age. In The Opposite of Swedish Death Cleaning the focus widens, but the poems sing with the same tenderness, vitality and humour.
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