Fingertip of the Tongue

No longer knowing which is sweeter / the cherry or the feel of the word in my mouth


Fingertip of the Tongue explores the texture, tone, taste, and touch of language. These are poems that feel their way through word and world with tongue and ear and fingertip.


'In Fingertip of the Tongue we find a poetry of close observation of people and everyday objects, finding in them new and deeper implications. These poems are sometimes whimsical, sometimes deeply personal, always satisfying. Sarah Rice displays a fascination with form and a great skill in finding the startlingly apt word, the evocative insight. Hers is a poetry of mind and heart.' - Ron Pretty


'Sarah Rice writes poems of astonishing grace. To read her is to walk a hill and lose your limp and breathe your grief out among eucalypt leaves and return to your life smarter than you left it. Light and grave at once, bright with intelligence, masterfully made, and written with a musical ear, they dance ordinary days into epiphanies, suffering into wisdom, and they put a reader back inside the natural world, as if they'd never left it.' - Mark Tredinnick


'This poetry collection explores how the self, the body and poetry are intimately connected in their various expressions, while obliquely mapping a personal history of loss, change and rejuvenation. Sarah Rice is fascinated by the flux, flow and harmonic resources of language, and entranced with the transformations words work on the world. These poems ruminate on connections between the imagination, the extraordinary and what is close at hand.' - Paul Hetherington