Description
Jo Clement's first collection confronts Romantic impressions of British Gypsy ethnicity and lyrically lays them to rest. From Wordsworth to Top Gear, her poems invite us to consider notions of otherness, trespass, and craft. She steps between ancient stopping places and mardy council estates to trill elegiac Romanes, English, and birdsong about witches, wild camping, and Silver Cross prams. Compelled by a brutal Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller diasporic legacy, Outlandish tenderly praises the poem-as-protest and illuminates a hidden and threatened culture. Born in Darlington in 1986, Jo Clement received a scholarship to gain a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. She has published two pamphlets, including Moveable Type (2020). She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Northumbria University, Editor of Butcher's Dog poetry magazine, and founded the imprint Wagtail with support from the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC).
About the Author
Born in Darlington in 1986, Jo Clement is the recipient of a Northern Writers' Award and the Editor of Butcher's Dog poetry magazine. With support from the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), she is the founder of the imprint Wagtail. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Bridport, Melita Hume and Troubadour International prizes. She has written for The Travellers' Times, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Your Local Arena, and currently works as a Creative Writing Lecturer at Northumbria University. She lives in North Shields. Jo holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, which was awarded an inaugural AHRC Northern Bridge scholarship. With Arts Council England support, Outlandish was first commissioned by New Writing North for the 2019 Durham Book Festival as a collaborative walking and writing book co-authored with Damian Le Bas, with drawings by W. John Hewitt. Jo's debut pamphlet Moveable Type (New Writing North) was published in 2020. Her first book-length collection, also titled Outlandish, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2022.
Reviews
It is very rare to find a young poet with such an alert musical ear, able to listen ahead for the shape of a sound yet to be uttered. -- Sean O'Brien
Here is delight - these poems, rich and strange, brim from 'the skim/of blood that can't settle'. Jo Clement's gifts shine and dazzle: amongst the darting, many-layered music of her imagery and sensuous evocation of northerly landscapes gleams a clear-sightedness politically aware and historically acute. Meaning is interrogated as a riverine process and emerges, movingly, in significances found later. Part urban fable, part re-imagining of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller culture, these poems are beautifully made to be read and re-read, savoured for their sharp, apple-bite tenderness, their truth and wisdom, their sheer originality. -- Pippa Little
This is the word of the weathered hand and of the hard, hale youth; the tattered treasure, the grafter and the fetter-breaking wild. These intoxicating and fine-sprung poems instantly place Clement in the front rank of Traveller writers. May they also relight our wonder at the depths of all unsung Englands. -- Damian Le Bas
Book Information
ISBN 9781780376141
Author Jo Clement
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 8mm
About the Author
Born in Darlington in 1986, Jo Clement is the recipient of a Northern Writers' Award and the Editor of Butcher's Dog poetry magazine. With support from the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), she is the founder of the imprint Wagtail. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Bridport, Melita Hume and Troubadour International prizes. She has written for The Travellers' Times, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Your Local Arena, and currently works as a Creative Writing Lecturer at Northumbria University. She lives in North Shields. Jo holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, which was awarded an inaugural AHRC Northern Bridge scholarship. With Arts Council England support, Outlandish was first commissioned by New Writing North for the 2019 Durham Book Festival as a collaborative walking and writing book co-authored with Damian Le Bas, with drawings by W. John Hewitt. Jo's debut pamphlet Moveable Type (New Writing North) was published in 2020. Her first book-length collection, also titled Outlandish, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2022.
Reviews
It is very rare to find a young poet with such an alert musical ear, able to listen ahead for the shape of a sound yet to be uttered. -- Sean O'Brien
Here is delight - these poems, rich and strange, brim from 'the skim/of blood that can't settle'. Jo Clement's gifts shine and dazzle: amongst the darting, many-layered music of her imagery and sensuous evocation of northerly landscapes gleams a clear-sightedness politically aware and historically acute. Meaning is interrogated as a riverine process and emerges, movingly, in significances found later. Part urban fable, part re-imagining of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller culture, these poems are beautifully made to be read and re-read, savoured for their sharp, apple-bite tenderness, their truth and wisdom, their sheer originality. -- Pippa Little
This is the word of the weathered hand and of the hard, hale youth; the tattered treasure, the grafter and the fetter-breaking wild. These intoxicating and fine-sprung poems instantly place Clement in the front rank of Traveller writers. May they also relight our wonder at the depths of all unsung Englands. -- Damian Le Bas
Book Information
ISBN 9781780376141
Author Jo Clement
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 8mm
