I’m running a special offer: grab two volumes of my poetry (for a change) for the price of
one: Dr Mephisto and Radio Nostalgia for £10 plus free P&P
Dr Mephisto
http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/catalogue/view_product.php?product=88
Paperback: 88 pages
Publisher: Arc Publications (2002)
Language English
ISBN-10: 190007267X
Price RRP £8.95
Dr. Mephisto is in the form of a long sequence of poems. It traces Mephistopheles as he
ranges freely through time and space, at times a laconic observer, at others a thuggish
participant, but always a presence wherever there is conflict and suffering and whenever
there is work to be done. Far from being oppressive, this is an exciting and highly original
work, whose exhilarating pace is set by Emery's innovative use of language and form,
and whose acerbic political edge keeps the vision sharp and fresh. Compelling, hard-
hitting, and grimly funny, Dr. Mephisto will be remembered long after being read, and a
significant new poetic voice will have been recognised.
“...vivid, pungent stanzas...”
—Stride Magazine
“Broadcasting from Planet Sky into our theatre of hate comes a louche, latter-day
Mephistopheles. Satire and mock-allegory wear out the dramatic personae as we, the
readers, refuse to audition for the part of Faustus. More Marlowe than Goethe, things
really catch light when the lines go lyrical. Ghosts of punk offer up trills of the damned,
but a secular scepticism is on keyboards. Think of Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich in A
Touch of Evil and dream of new dawns.”
—Drew Milne
“This is a remarkable debut collection by Chris Emery. He possesses an attack vocabulary
and has the ambition to think the unthinkable. Cross yourself before reading Dr.
Mephisto.”
—John Hartley-Williams
Radio Nostalgia
http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/catalogue/view_product.php?product=307
Paperback: 92 pages
Publisher: Arc Publications (2006)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1904614191
Price RRP £8.99
Radio Nostalgia uses a range of personas and historical locations to examine our sense of
community and what our lives can mean. Reporting back from the frontiers of conflicts
and consumerism, we enter a world mediated through news anchors, oracles and
narrators, where often violent simulations of national conviction fall dangerously short of
being human.
“As palliative as a corpse in a junkyard, ... Radio Nostalgia doesn’t relax you so much as
it opens a way into wakefulness. With a stunning lexicon, short phrases stuffed with grit,
petrol and spleen, Chris Emery orchestrates a complex, resistant music into one to three-
beat lines as our ‘countdown to armaments’. He refuses to look away from the tableau
vivant of degradation. “It is (as promised) all here for you now”, he writes, a twenty-first
century so wounded and blout that only the language that crawls over it shimmers with
its implicit hope for transformation and redemption.”
—Forrest Gander
“...has complex roots. The poems owe much to cinema ... a distinctive sonic resonance
... word music which sets his work apart. In these poems Emery has discovered a
language which articulates the complex and nightmarish ramifications of the war on
terror ...”
—Philip Terry, Stride Magazine, March 2007
“... language is dense and has been pared down to convey the stark nature of the world
and the taut lives of the characters which people his particular wasteland.... thrives on
the binding device of this tight diction ... springs the rhythm of the entire language and
renders it foreign ... a rather breathless feel to it ... musical and expansive.”
—Nigel McLoughlin Poetry Review, Vol 97:1, Spring 2007
“...strong, gritty and very appealing ... a plainness of diction and a wry humour ... witty,
gracious and entertaining. ... presented with real dignity and compassion.”
—Robert Nisbet, Roundyhouse 20, 2007
Both books for £10 plus free P&P. Just drop me a line with your address and pay how you
like (preferably PayPal). If you’re using PayPal send £10 to [log in to unmask]
Email me with your address at [log in to unmask]
Happy reading.
Love
Chris
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=749350812
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