Night Window
Published on 9. January 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
82 pages
978-1-84861-913-5 (ISBN)
Description
"I go to Ian Seed's poetry whenever I need reminding of the possibilities or a good slap in the inspiration. A master of the prose poem and the unexpected lyric. There's a beautiful, painterly logic to these compositions and a perfect balance between the elevating magical and the crushingly disappointing. His narrators speak for all of us, at work, in transit, in family, memory, or continental cities. Grief-stricken, erotic, silly, embarrassed or baffled, but somehow determined to live 'joyously and seriously' against the inexplicable, the obligatory and the mundane at whatever damn cost. Night Window is shot through with melancholy, wit, absences and bookshops - it deserves legions of readers." -Luke Kennard
"Exquisitely voiced and deeply beguiling, Night Window explores impermanence in uncanny, liminal and provocative poems. Often set in the transitory spaces of trains, buses, cafes, markets and trattorie, narrators confront their nostalgia and self-imposed exile in a series of threshold moments foregrounding 'obsession', 'unspeakable desire', erotic remembrance and quotidian encounters. The motif of fenestration heightens the fusion between neo-Gothic outsiderness and modernity's transcendent flaneurism in poems which are often mordantly humorous and sardonic. In self-reflexive, Calvino-esque moments, Seed reveals, 'I have to find a way / to free the text to yield its story' and reminds us, 'It takes a stranger to see the beauty'. Gertrude Stein once said Max Jacob had a 'poet soul'. A translator of Jacob's poetry, Ian Seed in Night Window, uncovers his own poet's soul and cements his reputation as one of the finest contemporary proponents of the prose poem form." -Cassandra Atherton
"Exquisitely voiced and deeply beguiling, Night Window explores impermanence in uncanny, liminal and provocative poems. Often set in the transitory spaces of trains, buses, cafes, markets and trattorie, narrators confront their nostalgia and self-imposed exile in a series of threshold moments foregrounding 'obsession', 'unspeakable desire', erotic remembrance and quotidian encounters. The motif of fenestration heightens the fusion between neo-Gothic outsiderness and modernity's transcendent flaneurism in poems which are often mordantly humorous and sardonic. In self-reflexive, Calvino-esque moments, Seed reveals, 'I have to find a way / to free the text to yield its story' and reminds us, 'It takes a stranger to see the beauty'. Gertrude Stein once said Max Jacob had a 'poet soul'. A translator of Jacob's poetry, Ian Seed in Night Window, uncovers his own poet's soul and cements his reputation as one of the finest contemporary proponents of the prose poem form." -Cassandra Atherton
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Exeter
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
Weight
128 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84861-913-5 (9781848619135)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ian Seed is an award-winning poet, translator, short-story writer, essayist and editor. With a surreal edge, his writing often exposes the comical void at the heart of many of our everyday encounters. His collection of prose poetry, 'New York Hotel' (Shearsman, 2018) was featured on BBC Radio Merseyside and was a TLS Book of the Year. His collections of prose poetry, 'Identity Papers' (Shearsman, 2016) and 'Makers of Empty Dreams' (Shearsman, 2014) were showcased on BBC Radio Three's 'The Verb'. Ian Seed's books of translation include 'The Thief of Talant' (Wakefield Press, 2016), the first translation into English of Pierre Reverdy's innovative long poem, 'Le voleur de Talan'. It was long-listed (top ten in poetry) for the Millions Best Translated Book award.