Returns
Published on 5. July 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
74 pages
978-1-84861-932-6 (ISBN)
Description
John Welch's new book, his fourteenth since his first full length collection appeared in 1984, is writing that reflects on the strangeness of continuing to make poems 'Like a ball / thrown from an empty hand.' There is the recurring sense of 'an absence / embellished in the text' carrying on 'until It was / the page that silenced him'. Along with this there is the expression of an intermittent feeling of ambivalence regarding the 'business' of being a poet, the 'life of it'. Other work in the collection is declarative and of a more direct address.
Previous comments on John Welch's work:
"John Welch has been a significant figure since the early seventies, and deserves acclaim. His own aptly named Many Press has published numerous well-designed pamphlets... For my money, Out Walking is the finest volume Anvil have produced." -James Keery.
"No Flash effects, no random scramblings, no posturing, nothing sly or trivial. Writing as if your life depended on it." -Peter Hughes
"His poems resist easy closure... Readers of contemporary poetry who value the art as an expression of the processes of thought, perception and feeling will find much that is compelling." -James Sutherland-Smith
Previous comments on John Welch's work:
"John Welch has been a significant figure since the early seventies, and deserves acclaim. His own aptly named Many Press has published numerous well-designed pamphlets... For my money, Out Walking is the finest volume Anvil have produced." -James Keery.
"No Flash effects, no random scramblings, no posturing, nothing sly or trivial. Writing as if your life depended on it." -Peter Hughes
"His poems resist easy closure... Readers of contemporary poetry who value the art as an expression of the processes of thought, perception and feeling will find much that is compelling." -James Sutherland-Smith
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Exeter
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 5 mm
Weight
118 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84861-932-6 (9781848619326)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Born in London in 1942 John Welch is married to the artist Amanda Welch and has lived with his family in Hackney for the last fifty years. In 1975 he founded a poetry publishing imprint, The Many Press, producing around a hundred items - pamphlets, some full length collections, as well as two magazines. He has in recent years worked with the Iraqi poet Abdul Karim Kasid and the Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan on English versions of their work. His prose writings include Dreaming Arrival, a personal account of an experience of psychoanalysis.