call me

        begins with the poet moving to London and concludes with the poet leaving London, with fragments of a call in-between. The poems in call me can be read as notes or letters attempting to reach someone, to hold on to love and to language in the context of a new city. The poems traverse English, Spanish, and Catalan, pulling meaning from each language and questioning monocultural and monolingual conceptions of our realities.

                                                                                        llámame xxx

Laia Sales Merino’s debut pamphlet is a beautiful call. It is a long distance call to a country the poet no longer lives in. It is a gentle phone call to a former lover. It is a calling out to men who do horrendous things. These are poems for anyone caught between: between cities, lovers, languages. I let it wash over me like a voice note from a friend who just needs to talk: I found comfort, joy, laughter and sadness here. Merino has done some extraordinary work, melding languages together like two voices harmonising in a choir or shouting to each other on a night bus. I loved it. – Lewis Buxton

Laia Sales Merino’s stunning poetry shines tender light on belonging, connection, movement, loss and desire. Technically assured, effortlessly flitting across languages, memory and space, call me illuminates movement between, from, through and towards. An evocative pamphlet – poetry that glimmers under the skin.– Sussie Anie 

32pp