Longlisted for the 2019 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize Shortlisted for the 2019 Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize Shortlisted for the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award from the Society of Authors Shortlisted for the 2018 T. S. Eliot Prize. Winner of the 2018 Forward (Felix Dennis) Prize for Best First Collection. A Poetry Book Society Spring 2018 Recommendation. Wandering in central Europe, a traveller observes and records a landscape of lakes, folk culture and uneasy histories. Phoebe Power's Shrines of Upper Austria gathers numerous stories and perspectives, such as the fragmented narrative of an Austrian woman who married a British soldier after the Second World War, and the voices of schoolchildren and immigrants. Strange discoveries are made: a grave for two dead goats; a lantern procession on the night of Epiphany; a baby abandoned by a river; a homemade frog-puppet. The poems are a collage of stories and histories, set in a variety of forms and registers. They are attentive to local detail, rich in the names of people and places - Marija, Omegepta, Eck 4 and the Loser Mountain. Mixing poetry and prose, image and narrative, German and English, Power's poems are a celebration of creativity in unlikely places. Against a disquieting backdrop of mild winters and memories of snow, they invite us to question what it means to feel at once a stranger and at home.

First full debut from promising young poet (2009 Foyle Young Poet of the Year, and winner of a 2012 Eric Gregory Award and a 2014 Northern Writers' Award); A young woman searching for love and understanding in 21st century Britain finds herself away from home. Wandering in rural Austria, she observes and records a landscape of mountains, folk culture and uneasy histories; A celebration of creativity in unlikely places and a reconsideration of the terms `foreign' and `home'; Multiple lives, anecdotes and voices are dispersed within the text

About the Author
Phoebe Power received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2012 and a Northern Writers' Award in 2014. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies including The Rialto, Oxford Poetry and The White Review. She has recently collaborated with other artists on projects including a live performance of her pamphlet Harp Duet (Eyewear, 2016), and Christl, a video installation involving poetry, visual art and sound. She currently lives in York.

Reviews
'It is rare for me to read a collection aloud, to feel that it must be voiced. It is a testament to the quality of Power's work that not only did I do this once, but several times, and what's more, relish each repeated reading' - Sabotage Reviews; `Phoebe Power, in this accomplished, formally restless debut collection, yokes together some very surprising things: political musings, quasi-comic consumerist dilemmas, fascinated and bemused observations of Austrian custom, transcribed vocal fragments, family history, even - at one point - a murder mystery. You feel there is nothing her acute poetic eye cannot absorb. All this incorrigible plurality is united by an intelligence at once satirical and scrupulous, probing and tender. Hers is surely one of the freshest new voices to emerge in years.' - Caitriona O'Reilly


Awards
Winner of The Forward (Felix Dennis) Prize for Best First Collection 2018. Commended for Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation 2018. Short-listed for The T. S. Eliot Prize 2018 and Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize 2019 and Somerset Maugham Award from the Society of Authors 2019.



Book Information
ISBN 9781784105341
Author Phoebe Power
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 8mm