Description
Winner of the 2019 Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize. Ned Denny's Unearthly Toys are treacherous playthings, as rigorously structured as they are thematically unsettling, a `rhapsody of rags gathered from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled about' (as Robert Burton dubbed his Anatomy of Melancholy). The collection opens on a twilit, numinous world of exotic drugs, subterranean drums and visionary apprehension in which - to quote Twin Peaks, a recurrent leitmotif - `the woods are wondrous ... but strange'. Interspersed with original poems in a variety of complex forms is a series of illuminated and darkly erotic `remakes' of other poets' work, from the Old English classic The Wanderer to late Baudelaire via Goethe, Cavalcanti, Li Po, enigmatic troubadour lyrics, and the medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Politics are never far away: modern man's severance from the earth, the sacred, and his own inner self has grave consequences.
A broad cultural appeal - engages with widespread popular topics such as alien intelligence and abduction, conspiracy theories, pagan and non-Western myth, legend and spirituality, shamanism and tantra, and parallel realms; Poems are illuminated and technically-dazzling remakes of other poets' work, ranging from the Old English classic The Wanderer to late Baudelaire via Goethe, Heine, and Li Po; Melodiousness, formal rigor and rhyme-schemes will appeal to those who tend not to read or like contemporary poetry; Explores a concept of modern man's severance from the earth and the sacred, psychosocial control and the foundations of a contemporary Babylon.
About the Author
Ned Denny was born in London in 1975 and has worked as a postman, art critic, book reviewer, music journalist and gardener. His poems and remakes have appeared in publications including PN Review, Poetry Review, The White Review, Oxford Poetry, the TLS, and Modern Poetry in Translation. Carcanet published his first collection, Unearthly Toys: Poems and Masks, in February 2018 and B, a version of the Divine Comedy, is forthcoming
Reviews
'Ned Denny is a gifted troubadour who has crossed the ages. Unearthly Toys is formidably learned and formally exacting, but his versions are vividly imaginative and original. This is a book of great beauty and conceptual power: extremely clever but also haunting, proving again that formal requirements such as sestinas can be as much of a liberation as a constraint.' - Bernard O'Donoghue; 'As among the most inventive translators of Dante - watch this space - Denny as a poet goes to Hell and back time after time, with immense verve and authority' - New Italian Studies
Awards
Winner of Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize 2019.
Book Information
ISBN 9781784105389
Author Ned Denny
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 7mm
A broad cultural appeal - engages with widespread popular topics such as alien intelligence and abduction, conspiracy theories, pagan and non-Western myth, legend and spirituality, shamanism and tantra, and parallel realms; Poems are illuminated and technically-dazzling remakes of other poets' work, ranging from the Old English classic The Wanderer to late Baudelaire via Goethe, Heine, and Li Po; Melodiousness, formal rigor and rhyme-schemes will appeal to those who tend not to read or like contemporary poetry; Explores a concept of modern man's severance from the earth and the sacred, psychosocial control and the foundations of a contemporary Babylon.
About the Author
Ned Denny was born in London in 1975 and has worked as a postman, art critic, book reviewer, music journalist and gardener. His poems and remakes have appeared in publications including PN Review, Poetry Review, The White Review, Oxford Poetry, the TLS, and Modern Poetry in Translation. Carcanet published his first collection, Unearthly Toys: Poems and Masks, in February 2018 and B, a version of the Divine Comedy, is forthcoming
Reviews
'Ned Denny is a gifted troubadour who has crossed the ages. Unearthly Toys is formidably learned and formally exacting, but his versions are vividly imaginative and original. This is a book of great beauty and conceptual power: extremely clever but also haunting, proving again that formal requirements such as sestinas can be as much of a liberation as a constraint.' - Bernard O'Donoghue; 'As among the most inventive translators of Dante - watch this space - Denny as a poet goes to Hell and back time after time, with immense verve and authority' - New Italian Studies
Awards
Winner of Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize 2019.
Book Information
ISBN 9781784105389
Author Ned Denny
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 7mm
