Description
Challenging and tender, these poems are a rite of passage. Philip Gross's much praised previous collection, Deep Field, explored the loosening connections between the self and language in his refugee father's old age. This new book goes further, through the failing of the body, through the mind's weakening hold on the borderline between the present and the traumas of the past. It follows the journey to the end - then beyond, to the tentative byways through which mourning moves. With an instinct for form that both controls and releases depths of feeling, Philip Gross writes poetry that proves it can be trusted with the most raw yet essential things of life.
About the Author
Born in Cornwall, son of an Estonian wartime refugee, Philip Gross has lived in Plymouth, Bristol and South Wales, where he was Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University (USW). His 26th collection, Between the Islands (2020), follows ten previous books with Bloodaxe, including A Bright Acoustic (2017), Love Songs of Carbon (2015), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; Deep Field (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; The Water Table (2009), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Changes of Address: Poems 1980-1998 (2001), his selection from earlier books including The Ice Factory, Cat's Whisker, The Son of the Duke of Nowhere, I.D. and The Wasting Game. Since The Air Mines of Mistila (with Sylvia Kantaris, Bloodaxe Books, 2020), he has been a keen collaborator, most recently with artist Valerie Coffin Price on A Fold in the River (2015) and with poet Lesley Saunders on A Part of the Main (2018). I Spy Pinhole Eye (Cinnamon Press, 2009), with photographer Simon Denison, won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2010. He received a Cholmondeley Award in 2017. Philip Gross's poetry for young people includes Manifold Manor, The All-Nite Cafe (winner of the Signal Award 1994), Off Road to Everywhere (winner of the CLPE Award 2011) and the poetry-science collection Dark Sky Park.
Reviews
'A powerful and tender successor to the T.S. Eliot prize-winning The Water Table - The writing is sinewy, urgent and resourceful. This poet is a master of form, deploying his visual and aural patterns for emphasis, as if the page were a musical score - The collection evokes an essence of what it is to be human, the sense of both wonder and estrangement, our place within science, the sheer oddness of who we are. Deep Field is as strong in celebration as in lamentation. With language as its theme, it soars linguistically' - Michael Symmons Roberts & Moniza Alvi, PBS Bulletin, on Deep Field. 'This book speaks directly to the heart of Lapidus concerns with how language can convey, transcend and re-enchant human experience. Philip Gross has not only honoured his father but created something of great beauty and wonder out from those final wordless years' - Victoria Field, Lapidus Journal. 'Philip Gross's previous collection, the T.S. Eliot Prize winning The Water Table, suggested a deepening vision based on focused contemplation of the world and our place - or lack of place - within it. This new collection takes us deeper still, sustaining with extra ordinary virtuosity a series of meditative variations on the related themes of language and wordlessness, human existence and the loss of identity' - Jem Poster, Planet. 'Philip Gross knows how to make silence and suggestion resonate - he touches an alien, intractable dimension - Gross's poems are about lost bearings and blurred frontiers' - Terry Eagleton, Independent on Sunday. 'Some of the poems are marvellous, not because they are brave about their subject, not even because of the technique on display, but because they are electrifyingly well observed and beautifully written' - David Morley, Poetry Review.
Book Information
ISBN 9781852249793
Author Philip Gross
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
About the Author
Born in Cornwall, son of an Estonian wartime refugee, Philip Gross has lived in Plymouth, Bristol and South Wales, where he was Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University (USW). His 26th collection, Between the Islands (2020), follows ten previous books with Bloodaxe, including A Bright Acoustic (2017), Love Songs of Carbon (2015), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; Deep Field (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; The Water Table (2009), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Changes of Address: Poems 1980-1998 (2001), his selection from earlier books including The Ice Factory, Cat's Whisker, The Son of the Duke of Nowhere, I.D. and The Wasting Game. Since The Air Mines of Mistila (with Sylvia Kantaris, Bloodaxe Books, 2020), he has been a keen collaborator, most recently with artist Valerie Coffin Price on A Fold in the River (2015) and with poet Lesley Saunders on A Part of the Main (2018). I Spy Pinhole Eye (Cinnamon Press, 2009), with photographer Simon Denison, won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2010. He received a Cholmondeley Award in 2017. Philip Gross's poetry for young people includes Manifold Manor, The All-Nite Cafe (winner of the Signal Award 1994), Off Road to Everywhere (winner of the CLPE Award 2011) and the poetry-science collection Dark Sky Park.
Reviews
'A powerful and tender successor to the T.S. Eliot prize-winning The Water Table - The writing is sinewy, urgent and resourceful. This poet is a master of form, deploying his visual and aural patterns for emphasis, as if the page were a musical score - The collection evokes an essence of what it is to be human, the sense of both wonder and estrangement, our place within science, the sheer oddness of who we are. Deep Field is as strong in celebration as in lamentation. With language as its theme, it soars linguistically' - Michael Symmons Roberts & Moniza Alvi, PBS Bulletin, on Deep Field. 'This book speaks directly to the heart of Lapidus concerns with how language can convey, transcend and re-enchant human experience. Philip Gross has not only honoured his father but created something of great beauty and wonder out from those final wordless years' - Victoria Field, Lapidus Journal. 'Philip Gross's previous collection, the T.S. Eliot Prize winning The Water Table, suggested a deepening vision based on focused contemplation of the world and our place - or lack of place - within it. This new collection takes us deeper still, sustaining with extra ordinary virtuosity a series of meditative variations on the related themes of language and wordlessness, human existence and the loss of identity' - Jem Poster, Planet. 'Philip Gross knows how to make silence and suggestion resonate - he touches an alien, intractable dimension - Gross's poems are about lost bearings and blurred frontiers' - Terry Eagleton, Independent on Sunday. 'Some of the poems are marvellous, not because they are brave about their subject, not even because of the technique on display, but because they are electrifyingly well observed and beautifully written' - David Morley, Poetry Review.
Book Information
ISBN 9781852249793
Author Philip Gross
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
