'…The Hopeful Hat is a masterclass in premonition and departure... She’ll be remembered for big-hearted, socially responsible poems that are intent on change but reconciled to limitation. This is a moving book that feeds our yearning for hope, while also questioning the meaning of hopefulness.’ – Kit Fan, The Guardian (Best recent poetry round-up)

"No matter how compelling her themes, with their demands of compassion and political conscience, Satyamurti never loses hold of her main topic: the capacity of language." — Poetry London

‘Carole Satyamurti’s poems look to be stations on a road map of psychological discoveries, sometimes personal, sometimes objective and scientific. Her best poems are not so much confessions as meditations.’ – Anne Stevenson, London Magazine

‘Her unobtrusive approach is deceptive – these poems have unexpected stings in their tails.’ – Penelope Shuttle

‘… though shaded by mortality, it’s not a sad book, rather the reverse, offering as it does its own very personal witness to the courage of the human spirit—a spirit encapsulated by the busker’s ‘hopeful hat’ in the title poem.’ – Stuart Henson, London Grip

‘This posthumous collection is a work of impressive artistry and depth… what I find impressive isn’t just the precision and economy with which these poems are written but the stance they take, the direction of their vision. Instead of asking us to look at her own situation, Satyamurti looks through it at other people’s experiences and broader human meanings… Altogether, this is a book I’d warmly recommend and expect to enjoy over many years.’ – Edmund Prestwich, The High Window

'The calm, wit and grace with which she writes makes reading her poems moving but never depressing.' - Kate Kellaway, The Observer (poetry book of the month)

‘… Satyamurti’s lyric meditations marry emotional clarity with imagery that lingers in the mind’s eye.’ – Ellora Sutton, Mslexia

‘These poems are quiet, insistent, intimate. They’re plain speaking. Her canvas ranges from the personal to the global... The book grows ever stiller and more beautiful, for this reader, as it progresses. There’s something about choosing the right words, ones that will bear fruit and witness.’ - Charlotte Gann, The Friday Poem

Carole Satyamurti (1939-2019) was a poet, translator and sociologist. For many years she taught at the Tavistock Clinic in London, where her main academic interest was in the relevance of psychoanalytic ideas to an understanding of the stories people tell about themselves. She co-edited Acquainted with the Night: psychoanalysis and the poetic imagination (2003). Her retrospective, Stitching the Dark: New & Selected Poems (2005) drew on five previous collections, two of which were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Her translation, Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling (W.W. Norton, 2015), was joint winner of the inaugural Roehampton Poetry Prize.

 7     Foreword by Emma Satyamurti
    10     Acknowledgements

    I
    13     The Hopeful Hat
    14     Cans
    15     How to Wash Dishes on the Eightfold Path
    16     You Could Say
    17     Obituary
    19     Inheritance
    20     Wednesday Again
    21     New York
    22     Easter
    23     All that Is Solid Melts into Air

    II
    27     Voicing the Void
    28     New Year on T14
    29     Glossal
    30     Sea Change
    31     Necklace of Wasps
    32     Mother Tongue
    33     Overtones

    III
    37     Requiem for a Death Foretold
    38     Small Change
    39     Paper Boat
    40     Vyasa’s Gift
    41     Hold On
    42     The Climate Game
    43     War Rhyme
    44     Grand

    IV
    47     Debrief
    48     Ought
    49     Sight Reading
    50     Succulent
    52     Solitude
    53     Shoreline
    54     Le moment juste
    55     It Turns Out
    56     Happening
    57     Less than Beautiful
    58     April
    59     Memento Mori
    60     Endurance
    61     Logically
    62     Solid