Description
Shortlisted for the 2019 Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections. Longlisted for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize. On Trust: A Book of Lies, James Womack's second collection of poems, is organised around the notion of telling the truth. Working against ideas of poetry as a vehicle for displaying individual truths or unprocessed confessions, these poems play hilariously, earnestly, undecidedly, with such simple identifications as the `I' of a poem with the `I' of the poet, offering us monologues which seem to be sincere, unvarnished accounts of things that have `really' happened, but which twist and escape any absolute statements of identity. Serious questions of being and belonging, as well as frivolous themes such as the Marquis de Sade, Siberia, genitals, the Fates, and death, are picked up in play, prodded at, then put down in new and sparkling configurations.
* A collection of poems organised around the idea of telling (and not telling) the truth. * Plays with the idea of the `I' of a poem - in these poems the speakers are not always who they appear to be. * Humorous and accessible, the collection touches on themes of being and belonging, death and fate. * Adopts and uses a large number of formal devices; the sonnet, Burns's stanza, sestina, free verse. * Features the Marquis de Sade, the seasons, mythology and fantasy, sex, history and Eastern Europe.
About the Author
James Womack was born in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation at university, and after living in Madrid for a decade now works as an editor, teacher and freelance translator in Cambridge. He has translated widely, including self-help books, popular fiction, Latin American classics and poetry. His first book of poems, Misprint, came out in 2012, and his book of versions `Vladimir Mayakovsky' and Other Poems appeared in 2016, both from Carcanet.
Reviews
`The first half of On Trust is about a love affair, which is true to all the stumbles of falling in love. An actual affair? Or a vivid thought-experiment? It is both and neither. It is Schroedinger's pussy. It is and it isn't. `In your park, the wind pushes at an empty swing.' Inventive, clever, funny, rueful, ironic, hypnotised by the erotic.' - Craig Raine; 'In James Womack's `book of lies', in the court of love and the erotic, where honesty may be a necessary contrivance, the speaker is both accuser and accused. The poems display a wry, mordant romanticism which manages to be at war with itself while keeping a keen eye on the imaginative opportunities. On Trust is a witty, eloquent, troubling collection.' - Sean O'Brien; 'Technically adept, self-consciously ironic, and provocative about the nature of art and the role of the artist... Often I felt as if I was being taken aside and told a joke that's ridiculously funny at the same time as being deadly serious.' - Heidi Williamson, Eyewear
Awards
Short-listed for The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections 2019.
Book Information
ISBN 9781784104160
Author James Womack
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 7mm
* A collection of poems organised around the idea of telling (and not telling) the truth. * Plays with the idea of the `I' of a poem - in these poems the speakers are not always who they appear to be. * Humorous and accessible, the collection touches on themes of being and belonging, death and fate. * Adopts and uses a large number of formal devices; the sonnet, Burns's stanza, sestina, free verse. * Features the Marquis de Sade, the seasons, mythology and fantasy, sex, history and Eastern Europe.
About the Author
James Womack was born in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation at university, and after living in Madrid for a decade now works as an editor, teacher and freelance translator in Cambridge. He has translated widely, including self-help books, popular fiction, Latin American classics and poetry. His first book of poems, Misprint, came out in 2012, and his book of versions `Vladimir Mayakovsky' and Other Poems appeared in 2016, both from Carcanet.
Reviews
`The first half of On Trust is about a love affair, which is true to all the stumbles of falling in love. An actual affair? Or a vivid thought-experiment? It is both and neither. It is Schroedinger's pussy. It is and it isn't. `In your park, the wind pushes at an empty swing.' Inventive, clever, funny, rueful, ironic, hypnotised by the erotic.' - Craig Raine; 'In James Womack's `book of lies', in the court of love and the erotic, where honesty may be a necessary contrivance, the speaker is both accuser and accused. The poems display a wry, mordant romanticism which manages to be at war with itself while keeping a keen eye on the imaginative opportunities. On Trust is a witty, eloquent, troubling collection.' - Sean O'Brien; 'Technically adept, self-consciously ironic, and provocative about the nature of art and the role of the artist... Often I felt as if I was being taken aside and told a joke that's ridiculously funny at the same time as being deadly serious.' - Heidi Williamson, Eyewear
Awards
Short-listed for The Ledbury Forte Poetry Prize for Second Collections 2019.
Book Information
ISBN 9781784104160
Author James Womack
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 7mm
