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Shearsman Books announces the publication of
Palavers, and A Nocturnal Journal
by
Christopher Middleton
ISBN 0-907562-51-5. Paperback, 151pp, 9" x 6",
£9.95 in the UK / $15.95 in the USA.
Christopher Middleton is one of the finest living British poets and
this volume presents the voice of the man behind a remarkable body of
work, firstly talking to poet Marius Kociejowski, and then talking to
himself – 18 months' worth of journal entries from the late 1990s, in
which he muses on matters poetic, social, political. The book also
includes an essay-memoir by Marius Kociejowski that traces the growth
of his fascination with Middleton's art.
Christopher Middleton was writing (not for publication) his 'Nocturnal
Journal' during the two years prior to his retirement from the
University of Texas at Austin, where he had taught German and
Comparative Literature since 1966. The journal appears here in
conjunction with conversations tape-recorded by Marius Kociejowski in
London during October 2002 and June 2003. In both areas Middleton
attends eloquently to his concerns as poet, translator, and essayist:
values intrinsic and peculiar to poetry, the fundamental human aptitude
(and craving) for aesthetic expression, and the reading of
sign-systems usually deemed haphazard (e.g. a Turkish sea-mew, a soccer
match, the aprons of waiters, rubbish in the Paris Metro, and a fresco
in Cappadocia).
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< More or Less Than > 1 - 100
by
M T C Cronin
ISBN 0-907562-47-7. Paperback, 140pp, 9" x 6",
£9.95 in the UK / $15.95 in the USA.
Available in Australia from Collected Works in Melbourne, but I'm not
sure of the A$ proce.
The second British collection by this extraordinarily talented
Australian poet, who is creating a stir in several parts of the world.
Poems 1-13 and 88-100 from this one-hundred poem sequence have already
appeared in Shearsman magazine, issue 54, but the full scope of the
piece only becomes clear with publication of the complete book: one
hundred poems, where poem 1 has 1 line, poem 2 has 2 lines, all the way
to poem 50 with fifty lines, 51 with 49 lines and back down to 100
which is a one-liner again. Like many forms, self-imposed or otherwise,
Ms Cronin uses this apparently restrictive structure to support a
wonderfully original unfolding of verse.
“Poets have always enjoyed close relations with oracles, and oracles
are fond of dazzling us with numbers. MTC Cronin’s new collection of
poetry counts the mystery of life, love and literature up to 50 by
addition of lines, and then proceeds to the full 100 by subtracting
them. Throughout the verse is precipitously oracular — filled with
strangeness and yet abidingly concerned with everyday experience. It is
indeed A Book of the Dead and a Journal of the Living. This amounts to
a new departure by one of Australia’s most admired younger poets — an
extraordinary vision overall.”
(Peter Porter)
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Now online in the Shearsman Gallery series at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/gallery/rml/intro.html
Multiple Exposure
by
Rupert M Loydell
A series of 12 poems, accompanied by 12 of the author's abstract
paintings. The texts will appear in the author's new Shearsman
collection A Conference of Voices, in October 2004.
___________________________________
Tony Frazer
Shearsman Books Ltd
58 Velwell Road
Exeter EX4 4LD
England
Tel / Fax: (+44) (0) 1392-434511
http://www.shearsman.com/
___________________________________
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