Behold
Published on 8. October 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
64 pages
978-1-904634-85-0 (ISBN)
Description
"Behold" is Nicki Jackowska's seventh book of poetry. The title poem vividly evokes the history of the Holocaust with precise particulars and mundane details. Her European consciousness and working-class English roots give her writing an extraordinary spectrum of awareness. Many of the poems are akin to dramatic monologues, moving from a Lewes garden party to characters in a Brighton Terrace and thence to Krakuw. John Berger writes of the collection that 'Its grief has penetrated its syntax, and when there's that kind of penetration - it changes the reader's breathing.'
Reviews / Votes
John Berger writes of the collection that 'Its grief has penetrated its syntax, and when there's that kind of penetration - it changes the reader's breathing.' 'Nicki Jackowska combines her teeming psychic flora and fauna with hard outer experience in fascinating ways. She explores each with the other, makes beautiful fluid formations of the one as she develops submarine X-rays of the other. Her poems have a broad, deep focus through a language made up of antennae, sensors, aerials, nerve-tendrils and fronds - fluorescent and full of shifting reflections. They have the freshness of improvisations. They leave you with hard, often painful events, but go on breathing in their own tides, different every time you look at them.' Ted Hughes 'Nicki Jackowska's poems are - tough, gentle, wild, mysterious, magical and marvelous.' Adrian MitchellMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-904634-85-0 (9781904634850)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Nicki Jackowska has published six collections of poetry, three novels and the ground-breaking book on language, 'Write for Life'. She works as a creative writing tutor and advisor, collaborates with visual artists, and is a consummate performer of her poetry, drawing upon early theatrical roots. Her intimate knowledge of theatre is reflected in Behold and in her recently completed novel, 'The Lost Gardens of Mariamne'. Jackowska has received a Lannan Grant and an Arts Council England grant. She lives and works in Brighton.