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Interior Night (Picador Poetry)
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Product Description
Product Description
A brilliant new collection from one of the most exciting voices in contemporary poetry
Book Description
John Stammers has a poetic mind original enough to read the most mundane and familiar events as great portents and wonders, and an eye clear enough to uncover the surreal when it’s right under our noses. Stammers’ third collection is a vast map of an imaginative space that coincides with the known world, but radically changes the way we perceive it. Interior Night sees a restlessly eclectic mind engaged with the whole range of human creation, from our cultural icons to our cultural detritus: here the reader may encounter Alison Goldfrapp alongside characters who could be ancient Greek demigods or shifting avatars of silent-screen goddesses. There are dramatic monologues from the dark worlds of poverty and addiction – as well as typically unsettling run-ins with the shades of Rimbaud, Sterne and Keats. Stammers has focused all his celebrated daring, his oblique strategies and often outrageous personifications to produce for us a book of great emotional candour and seriousness. ‘Beneath the sharp social satire lurks a psychological insight, a sensitivity to a profound cultural inheritance.’ The Times ‘A frame of reference ranging from the scabrous to the desolately chic, as if Tristan Corbière were trying to get over an affair with Angelina Jolie.’ Clive James ‘Talent is unignorable.’ Cressida Connolly
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Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Interior Night is John Stammer's third collection. Readers of his previous work will find in this one several familiar leitmotivs: life viewed from wry angles combined with witty references to both literature and popular culture and a word-play that transposes familiar phrases into something new with Stravinskian deftness.
A new feature is perhaps hinted at in the book title. The old humour and lightness of touch is still there, but added to this is a fearless looking at life's darker corners. For example the poem titled "O" confronts drug taking in an upstairs room. "Mr Punch in Soho" reframes the puppet character in a sinister modern setting. "Existential" confronts death itself.
Most poignant of all is "Once" an elegy to Stammers' friend and mentor Michael Donaghy. A sense of personal loss permeates this poem that views the latter as a kind of spiritual descender in the manner of say of a Rimbaud. Whether this parallel is intentional or not, there are later poems in tribute to the great French poet also. Perhaps the most accomplished poem of all is "The Shrine of Proteus" a retelling of the ancient myth that displays Stammers' mastery of longer narrative.
Overall, Interior Night marks a deepening of emotional depth in Stammers' work. There are many other poems in this collection that support this. This is perhaps his most accomplished collection to date. A unique voice in contemporary British poetry who is becoming ever more essential reading.
A new feature is perhaps hinted at in the book title. The old humour and lightness of touch is still there, but added to this is a fearless looking at life's darker corners. For example the poem titled "O" confronts drug taking in an upstairs room. "Mr Punch in Soho" reframes the puppet character in a sinister modern setting. "Existential" confronts death itself.
Most poignant of all is "Once" an elegy to Stammers' friend and mentor Michael Donaghy. A sense of personal loss permeates this poem that views the latter as a kind of spiritual descender in the manner of say of a Rimbaud. Whether this parallel is intentional or not, there are later poems in tribute to the great French poet also. Perhaps the most accomplished poem of all is "The Shrine of Proteus" a retelling of the ancient myth that displays Stammers' mastery of longer narrative.
Overall, Interior Night marks a deepening of emotional depth in Stammers' work. There are many other poems in this collection that support this. This is perhaps his most accomplished collection to date. A unique voice in contemporary British poetry who is becoming ever more essential reading.
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