A posthumous collection of poetry, ‘beautiful, wry, brimming with intelligence and love’ with a foreword by Michael Ondaatje and an introduction by Kamila Shamsie.

Book blurb

Rebecca Swift, pioneering founder of The Literary Consultancy, believed every writer should have the opportunity for their voice to be heard, and their work to be developed. But, unbeknown to all except a few close friends, she had been working on her own poetry throughout her life, and was assembling a collection at the time of her tragically early death in 2017. 

A Suitable Love Object is that dream brought to fruition. Whether falling in (or out) of love, delighting in the intricacies of family politics or contemplating the bleak parameters of loss, Becky’s poems are brimming with intelligence and wonder; shards of light forever slicing through the darkness she unflinchingly explores.

For those lucky enough to know her, this collection provides a few more precious moments in her profound, witty company and the chance to meet some other extraordinary characters, including lifelong friend Doris Lessing, remembered here in a stunning sestina. For those who didn’t, this is a rare opportunity to bear witness to a beautiful mind at work.

My thoughts

I finish my posts of 2025 with a book I read for the 20 books of summer challenge and have read several times since – A Suitable Love Object by Rebecca Swift.

Rebecca had a remarkable life which ended far too early in 2017. She has edited several books, written a book on Emily Dickinson – Dickinson: Poetic Lives – had her poetry published in various anthologies, she worked in publishing (see bio below) and still you feel had so much more to give, to say. A Suitable Love Object was published posthumously in 2020.

Rebecca was the daughter of the actor Clive Swift and author Margaret Drabble, she had two brothers Adam – Professor of Political Theory at Warwick University – and Joe – garden designer and television presenter. Her aunts are A S Bryant, author and Helen Langdon an art historian, author. A great influence on Rebecca was Doris Lessing who she met as a teenager when Lessing was visiting her mother. They became lifelong friends.

One of the poems in A Suitable Love Object “In Memory of Doris Lessing Walking on the Heath” dedicated to her friend Melanie Silgardo who would, no doubt, appreciate this highly technical and beautifully rendered sestina*.

I will never be parted from those that I love most

From “Practising of Ghosts”

These poems full of dying are tributes to family, friends who Swift had lost or fears losing, a lament that she would not recover, for the lack of time she may have left and yet they are also full of admiration, humour and love.

With nearly fifty poems it is impossible to make comment on each but one that I particularly enjoyed was “Doppelgänger Friend” written in memory of Kate Hill (1965 – 1994).

‘Go back. Get out. You’re dead.’

From “Doppelgänger Friend”

I’m not sure how I would react to having a visitation from a dead friend but this seems like a very reasonable reaction. It made me chuckle. We keep our loved ones alive in our hearts and minds perhaps not by having an apparition visit us, even though that might be quite alarming it can be comforting and that is exactly what comes over in this poem. When someone close dies we feel such a loss that we keep them alive by remembering them, remembering time we spent with them but then that moment comes when those memories are less frequent but in Doppelgänger Friend an acceptance comes. The narrator is willing to keep interacting with her apparition so it is not just at the beginning she sees her friend but it continues ‘how much more time we spend together now you terrifyingly are not here.’ It feels comforting, the narrator knows her friend is dead and still accepts these moments as treasures. Perhaps, she hopes that when she’s gone her loved one will continue to spend time with her, that they will know she wanted to be with them always.

This anthology is a wonderful demonstration of the talent that Rebecca Swift had. On the inside flap of A Suitable Love Object it says ‘this collection provides a few more precious moments in her profound, witty company’ for those lucky enough to know the author and for those of us who didn’t it ‘is a rare opportunity to bear witness to a beautiful mind at work.’ The poems show a way of coping with loss, tell of love and falling in love and are a gift to the reader.

I’m not sure why this post has taken me until now to share my thoughts with you other than even now I don’t feel that I have really done justice to A Suitable Love Object. It’s a wonderful book, all the poems are very readable, it is a collection that is so intimate, so personal. It is something I will go back to read over again and again.

I highly recommend reading A Suitable Love Object.

*sestina – a description.

Note: there are buy options below, currently the publisher has an amazing offer on so if you want to buy your own copy this option would make sense, or you could ask for it at your local library.

Book: Purchased

20 Book of Summer 2025

20 Books of Summer 2025

I have read A Suitable Love Object as part of my 20 books of summer challenge.

This is the second of two outstanding posts the first post being Unruly by David Mitchell.

My list of books being read for this challenge. 

20 books of summer has new hosts Emma of Words and Peace and you can read all about it on Annabel’s blog including all the rules and sign up. It’s a challenge I’ve always enjoyed and am sure I’ll continue to do so. 

The challenge took place between 1 June and 31 August 2025

Information

Published: VALLEY PRESS | 2nd October 2020 | 80 pp | ISBN: 9781912436446 | CATALOGUE NO: VP0164

Valley Press on Substack

Buy: Valley Press (currently £7.00) | Amazon (currently £10) | Bookshop.org (affiliate link) (currently £12.34)| Your local library | Your local bookshop

Author

Rebecca Swift (1964-2017) was born in London and read English at Oxford University. She wrote prolifically throughout her life – diaries, novels and poems – and a collection of the latter, A Suitable Love Object, was published by Valley Press in 2020.

For seven years she worked at Virago Press, where she first conceived of the idea for the Literary Consultancy, which she co-founded in 1996 and was Director of until 2017. For Chatto & Windus she edited a volume of letters between George Bernard Shaw and Margaret Wheeler, Letters from Margaret: The Fascinating Story of Two Babies Swapped at Birth (1992) and Imagining Characters: Six Conversations about Women Writers, a book of conversations between writer A.S. Byatt and psychoanalyst Ignês Sodré (1995). Her poems have been anthologised in Virago New Poets (1990), Vintage New Writing 6 (1995), Driftwood US (2005), and Staple (2008). Her biography of Emily Dickinson, Dickinson: Poetic Lives, was published in 2011 with Hesperus Press.

She also wrote a libretto funded by Arts Council England and commissioned by the Lontano Ensemble; the opera, Spirit Child, composed by Jenni Roditi, was performed at Ocean in Hackney, London in 2001. She has also written and reviewed for the Independent on Sunday and the Guardian and completed an M.A. in Psychoanalytic Studies at the Tavistock.

Rebecca Margaret Swift, literary consultant and writer, born 10 January 1964; died 18 April 2017.

Books

Letters from Margaret: The Fascinating Story of Two Babies Swapped at Birth (1992), a correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and Margaret Wheeler | Imagining Characters (1995), a book of conversations between AS Byatt and the psychoanalyst Ignês Sodré. | Her biography of Emily Dickinson was published in 2011 by Hesperus in its Poetic Lives series | Her own poems were published in numerous anthologies | A Suitable Love Object (2020)

Further information

Rebecca Swift Foundation – Home of the Poets Network

National Centre for Writing – Remembering Rebecca Swift

The Guardian – Rebecca Swift obituary

One Year of the Rebecca Swift Foundation: Celebration – new anthology announced.