Homunculus
Published on 24. September 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
88 pages
978-1-78410-991-2 (ISBN)
Description
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2021
Homunculus is a long poem from award-winning poet and translator James Womack, based around the Elegies of the Roman poet Maximian. The last of the Roman poets, Maximian wrote in the sixth century, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire; critics have called his Elegies 'one of the strangest documents of the human mind', and W.H. Auden singled him out as a 'really remarkable poet'. Womack's versioning of the Elegies shows how this harsh poem of sex and old age can speak to our own contemporary, collapsing world.
Homunculus is a long poem from award-winning poet and translator James Womack, based around the Elegies of the Roman poet Maximian. The last of the Roman poets, Maximian wrote in the sixth century, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire; critics have called his Elegies 'one of the strangest documents of the human mind', and W.H. Auden singled him out as a 'really remarkable poet'. Womack's versioning of the Elegies shows how this harsh poem of sex and old age can speak to our own contemporary, collapsing world.
Reviews / Votes
'The poet and translator James Womack's long poem Homunculus is a deliciously grouchy howl at the indignities of the ageing body, studded with great jokes and brilliant shards of pain.'Claire Lowden, Times Literary Supplement 'This interpretation of the Elegies puts a modern spin on the serious nature of content, creating a rhythmic flow of references woven into the pacing of the poem [...] Womack's Homunculus is brutally, even indecently honest about the titular character's feelings and thoughts.'
Allen Chiu, DURA Dundee 'Homunculus is an inventive and exhilarating update on the dramatic monologue.'
Kathryn Maris, The Poetry Review
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
126 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-991-2 (9781784109912)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Person
James Womack is a poet and translator, based in Cambridge. He is the author of four collections with Carcanet: Misprint (2012); On Trust: A Book of Lies (2017); Homunculus (2020), and Why Are You Shouting? (2024). He translates widely from Spanish and Russian, and has put together anthologies for Carcanet of Vladimir Mayakovsky ('Vladimir Mayakovsky' And Other Poems, 2016) and Manuel Vilas (Heaven, 2020). He is currently working on contemporary Russian and Spanish poets and has recently completed a science fiction novel.