Sayling the Babel

'...along with all the music, this collection sings with a sense of purpose, with a life of activism...a lightness of touch in the handling of the most unlikely topics... I'll go back to this book again and again because of the amazing opening poem, a wonderful tour de force...'
- Eleanor Livingstone (Second Light Newsletter, 2007)

"Your book is wonderful. It made me laugh and cry, and you can't do much better than that with an old cynic like me." - John Beecher (Rollercoaster Records)

Saling the Babel is a gorgeous, life-affirming collection of poems, lyrics and songs. Sims writes especially well about making things - making music, making breakfast, making merry, making love and making war. There is a fine sonnet sequence in Incident in Tooting, nonsense songs (Osama bin Laden's at the Bottom of My Garden), a wonderful poem about her mother's funeral (Left Rites), in which the Red Army turn up to pay their respects and the magical Babies in Buggies, a prayer for a future "with no need for false gods or mad kings or fat profits/ or dictators and bloodfeuds and wars of revenge." - Andy Croft (Morning Star 18/9/06)

‘I make no bones about loving Hylda – as a person and a poet, and there’s no line between the two; no line between poetry and people, poetry and politics, poetry and song for Hylda. She makes us want to rhyme, to sing, to laugh and weep. She makes us remember “who we are, how we were”. Sayling the Babel is more than a book: it’s a songbook, a polyphony, a travelling stop for minstrelsy – you can’t just read Hylda, you have to join in. And at the end, you can’t help but cheer.’ - Mimi Khalvati

Inspecting the Island

‘Impressively lyrical talent…a very accomplished piece of work permeated with great humanitarianism… a great joy to find a novel like this, still full of positive notions rather than resignation.’ – Ben Ball, Granta Books