These poems on sex, death and pathology, both funny and moving, tackle taboo subjects with cutting-edge science and rich sensuality. All That Lives arises largely from residencies in pathology and neuroscience research institutes. It traces the author’s personal journey from witnessing the death of loved ones, through her quest to understand the science of dying down to brain cell level. At the same time, after a long marriage, her rediscovery of modern dating brings hilarious, earthy life to an unflinching collection which has already achieved great acclaim.

“Law’s images are vivid and the language rattles and sparks… she chooses her subjects carefully, seeking the intense and the pregnant within them and offering the reader something of the ‘real’ experience they contain.”
Poetry Review

Valerie Laws is a poet, playwright, novelist and mathematician. Her nine other published books include two poetry collections from Peterloo; an edited Star Trek anthology from Iron Press; and the crime novel The Rotting Spot, winner of a Northern Promise Award and shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize (Red Squirrel Press, 2009). She has twice won prizes in National Poetry competition.