The Breakfast Machine
Published on 30. April 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
64 pages
978-1-85224-873-4 (ISBN)
Description
Inside "The Breakfast Machine" a chicken on squeaky tin legs is cooking you eggs and a squirrel plays tape-recorded birdsong high up in a tree. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse high-tail it into town as cowboys, and the fate of the world is decided by a game of cards. "The Breakfast Machine" is driven by the transformations of fairytale where the dark corners of childhood are explored and found to be alive and well in offices, kitchens and hen-houses. There is more than a hint of East European darkness in Helen Ivory's third collection, which sits more comfortably alongside the animations of Jan Svankmajer than any English poetic tradition.
Reviews / Votes
Helen Ivory creates a troubled yet beguiling world rich in irony and disquiet. She possesses a strongly-grounded narrative voice which, combined with her dextrous transformative takes both on reality and on what lies beyond reality's surface, puts one in mind of the darker side of Stevie Smith who said that poetry 'is a strong explosion in the sky'. The Breakfast Machine is such an explosion in the sky of contemporary poetry. -- Penelope ShuttleMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 3 mm
Weight
233 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85224-873-4 (9781852248734)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Helen Ivory is a poet and visual artist. She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears, and is a lecturer for the UEA/National Centre for Writing online creative writing programme. She has published five collections with Bloodaxe Books: The Double Life of Clocks (2002), The Dog in the Sky (2006), The Breakfast Machine (2010), Waiting for Bluebeard (2013) and The Anatomical Venus (2019). Fool's World, a collaborative Tarot with artist Tom de Freston (Gatehouse Press), won the 2016 Saboteur Best Collaborative Work award. A book of collage/ mixed media poems, Hear What the Moon Told Me, was published KFS in 2017, and a chapbook, Maps of the Abandoned City, by SurVision in 2019. She has received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, and was awarded Arts Council funding and an Author's Award from the Society of Authors to work on The Anatomical Venus. She lives in Norwich.