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Before we got the news by Jenny Pagdin
Editorial Note by Max Wallis
In Before we got the news, Jenny Pagdin captures the strange suspension before devastation takes form. First, “a dead tone, the line gone down” a failure of connection that becomes a metaphor for helplessness. The imagery is both technological and bodily: filaments, tinfoil, white noise, night terrors. It evokes the way shock lodges in the nervous system, how the body anticipates rupture even before the mind knows. The final image of rain falling “onto a dull sea” refuses resolution, offering only repetition and weight. This is a poem of stasis and fracture, a moment poised on the edge of news that will change everything. Pagdin tells me, it’s “about the dread-filled knowing, the moment when a missing friend is confirmed to have died by suicide. A stitch or jump in time, not the call from the police but an intuition in the bones."
Before we got the news
by Jenny Pagdin
Before we got the news, my hands
held a dead tone, the line gone down.
I couldn’t make the filaments touch,
no voices in the tinfoil, no white noise.
I tried to lift my head up into the dark,
like paralyzed screaming in a night terror.
The loosely shaken rain
falling and falling onto a dull sea.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
About the author:
Jenny Pagdin is the author of The Snow Globe (Nine Arches, 2024) and Caldbeck (Eyewear, 2017), both exploring her experiences of postpartum psychosis. Winner of the 2024 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry, she was highly commended in the Bridport Prize, shortlisted for the Mslexia Pamphlet Competition, and placed second in the Café Writers Prize. Her work appears in Poetry London, Magma, The Emma Press, and elsewhere.
If you need help:
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
View all episodes
By Max Wallis' Daily Aftershock Writing Prompts (The Aftershock Review)Editorial Note by Max Wallis
In Before we got the news, Jenny Pagdin captures the strange suspension before devastation takes form. First, “a dead tone, the line gone down” a failure of connection that becomes a metaphor for helplessness. The imagery is both technological and bodily: filaments, tinfoil, white noise, night terrors. It evokes the way shock lodges in the nervous system, how the body anticipates rupture even before the mind knows. The final image of rain falling “onto a dull sea” refuses resolution, offering only repetition and weight. This is a poem of stasis and fracture, a moment poised on the edge of news that will change everything. Pagdin tells me, it’s “about the dread-filled knowing, the moment when a missing friend is confirmed to have died by suicide. A stitch or jump in time, not the call from the police but an intuition in the bones."
Before we got the news
by Jenny Pagdin
Before we got the news, my hands
held a dead tone, the line gone down.
I couldn’t make the filaments touch,
no voices in the tinfoil, no white noise.
I tried to lift my head up into the dark,
like paralyzed screaming in a night terror.
The loosely shaken rain
falling and falling onto a dull sea.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe
About the author:
Jenny Pagdin is the author of The Snow Globe (Nine Arches, 2024) and Caldbeck (Eyewear, 2017), both exploring her experiences of postpartum psychosis. Winner of the 2024 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry, she was highly commended in the Bridport Prize, shortlisted for the Mslexia Pamphlet Competition, and placed second in the Café Writers Prize. Her work appears in Poetry London, Magma, The Emma Press, and elsewhere.
If you need help:
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aftershockpoetry.substack.com/subscribe