Description
David Hart's Library Inspector is a requiem to libraries and to the power of books, with imaginative origins in the new Library of Birmingham, and its realisation here in the windswept landscape of coastal Mid Wales. As the figure of the Library Inspector struggles to keep up with disappearing librarians, tiny libraries with perplexing opening hours and a prized stock of just a few books, the landscape is altering and memories and books alike are carried off on the breeze and swallowed by the sea. Dreamlike and darkly-humoured, the Library Inspector's journey reveals a vanishing world with long shadows on the horizon. The narrator might be decidedly unreliable, and the fables fabulous, but at this poem's heart is a solemn melancholy in the face of a reality of library closures and fleeting time, for memory, for love and for the sake of words.
About the Author
David Hart was born and grew up in Aberystwyth (of English parents), hence this book's albeit fictional setting, the book written in Birmingham in the shadow of the construction of the new Library of Birmingham. David, in this city most of his life, has been university chaplain, Birmingham Post theatre critic, worked for the then West Midlands Arts and for many years now freelance as a poet, including hospitals, Worcester Cathedral and poetry festival residencies. He has won First & Second prizes in the Poetry Society's National Poetry Competition and won the Irish National Competition. He was the first selected Birmingham Poet Laureate. His books of poetry include Setting the poem to words, Running Out, Crag Inspector (a poem of Bardsey Island), all Five Seasons Press, The Titanic Cafe closes its doors...(Nine Arches), shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award. He is an Elected member of the Welsh Academy. The present book began during his time as Library of Birmingham Poet, during the transition from the old to the new.
Book Information
ISBN 9780993120138
Author David Hart
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Nine Arches Press
Publisher Nine Arches Press
Weight(grams) 152g
