Description
With its flighty parables and skewed morality tales, The Wilderness Party is an unforgettable record of turbulent times. These are poems of finely-wrought musicality, bristling energy and playful excess. From cream cakes on Shetland to Camberwick Green, from Lyuba the Siberian mammoth to the madness of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, A.B. Jackson approaches personal and historical events with a mixture of wit and wonder. Included in the opening section of individual lyrics is 'Treasure Island', winner of the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. The series 'Natural History' takes a spirited linguistic tour through Pliny the Elder in Elizabethan translation to uncover the myths, mysteries, and uncanny familiarities of animal behaviour. In the twenty-one short fictions of 'Apocrypha', high ideals cavort with low befuddlement as re-cast Biblical characters attempt to make sense of the modern world. The Wilderness Party is Jackson's long-awaited follow-up to his Forward Prize-winning first collection Fire Stations. Poetry Book Society Recommendation. .
About the Author
A.B. Jackson was born in Glasgow in 1965 and raised in the village of Bramhall, Cheshire. After moving to Cupar in Fife he studied English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His first book, Fire Stations (Anvil), won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2003, and a limited edition pamphlet, Apocrypha (Donut Press), was published in 2011. In 2010 he won first prize in the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. His second collection, The Wilderness Party (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Voyage of St Brendan is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021.
Reviews
At A.B. Jackson's Wilderness Party you never know quite what will happen at the next inventive and fantastical turn of thought - always elegantly dressed and poised, working with beautiful musical control, Jackson's poems in this collection are wired for unpredictable play and fancy. Wryly volatile and resistant, his language is open at every step to the high-energy transformations that spark from the metrical and harmonic patternings of his phrasing. -- ohn Burnside & Jane Draycott * PBS Bulletin *
The Wilderness Party is about the dangerous power of words - as law, as lies, as holy writ - but also brims with love of language. Jackson creates an irresistible poetry of resistance which brings disillusion and delight in equal measure. -- Clare Pollard
A.B. Jackson's poems are a model of precision, displaying an intensity of craftsmanship and care that is as rare amongst contemporary poetry as the originality of his imaginative range. Combined with comic panache and a perfect ear, his work - its ethical weight and aesthetic rigour - seems to me to be essential reading for anybody interested in the potential of poetic language. -- Ahren Warner
Book Information
ISBN 9781780372600
Author A.B. Jackson
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
About the Author
A.B. Jackson was born in Glasgow in 1965 and raised in the village of Bramhall, Cheshire. After moving to Cupar in Fife he studied English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His first book, Fire Stations (Anvil), won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2003, and a limited edition pamphlet, Apocrypha (Donut Press), was published in 2011. In 2010 he won first prize in the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. His second collection, The Wilderness Party (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Voyage of St Brendan is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021.
Reviews
At A.B. Jackson's Wilderness Party you never know quite what will happen at the next inventive and fantastical turn of thought - always elegantly dressed and poised, working with beautiful musical control, Jackson's poems in this collection are wired for unpredictable play and fancy. Wryly volatile and resistant, his language is open at every step to the high-energy transformations that spark from the metrical and harmonic patternings of his phrasing. -- ohn Burnside & Jane Draycott * PBS Bulletin *
The Wilderness Party is about the dangerous power of words - as law, as lies, as holy writ - but also brims with love of language. Jackson creates an irresistible poetry of resistance which brings disillusion and delight in equal measure. -- Clare Pollard
A.B. Jackson's poems are a model of precision, displaying an intensity of craftsmanship and care that is as rare amongst contemporary poetry as the originality of his imaginative range. Combined with comic panache and a perfect ear, his work - its ethical weight and aesthetic rigour - seems to me to be essential reading for anybody interested in the potential of poetic language. -- Ahren Warner
Book Information
ISBN 9781780372600
Author A.B. Jackson
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
