Todd Swift Livres

Swift's Budavox: poems 1990-1999 explored sex, violence, art, and memory, to critical acclaim. His new collection, Caf Alibi, written while the author lived abroad in Budapest and Paris, extends these concerns to include popular culture, history, desire, nostalgia, and the often competing claims of travel and home. Swift's crisp, elegant, deceptively calm language questions images of 'the child, the adult and the outside world' in ways both witty and disturbing. Caf Alibi maps a stylish itinerary through exotic terrain, offering at once hostility and ultimate peace, poetry that puts love to the test and disarms our darkest fears.

The sequel delves into the complexities of human experience over the past year, reflecting on themes such as identity, mortality, and connection. It explores the interplay of the scientific and the mysterious, touching on love, relationships, and the impact of the environment. The collection captures the essence of daily life and the emotions tied to various aspects like art, nature, and personal relationships, all while contemplating what endures in a changing world.

Exploring themes of desire, retro style, and the complexities of modern life, this collection features poems that intertwine religion, marriage, and fantasy with a cinematic flair. Todd Swift's work reflects a unique blend of personal and cultural allusions, echoing the influences of Freud and the notable events of 2016, including the losses of Bowie and Cohen. The collection pays homage to contemporary poets Denise Riley and Derek Mahon, celebrating their eloquence and further enriching Swift's dynamic poetic universe.

Exploring the interplay of art, fantasy, and desire, Todd Swift delves into the emotional complexities of the human heart. The work examines how imagination provides solace amidst the overwhelming forces of reality, presenting its delicate and impactful contributions. Themes of love, lust, fear, trust, hope, and despair intertwine, revealing the intricate tapestry of human experience and the fragility of our dreams and emotions.

Featuring contributions from over 200 contemporary poets across various faiths, this anthology showcases a diverse range of perspectives on spirituality and religion. Notable poets such as Andrew Motion and Rae Armantrout are included, alongside voices from agnostics and atheists. The collection is introduced by esteemed religious scholar Professor Ewan Fernie, highlighting its significance in exploring the intersection of poetry and spirituality. This groundbreaking volume offers a rich tapestry of thought-provoking works.

Exploring themes of religion, marital love, sexual desire, and mental health, this collection offers a rich tapestry of new poems that reflect Todd Swift's diverse experiences over three decades of poetry. Set against the backdrop of Maida Vale, the work combines lengthy sequences with concise lyrics, creating a dynamic exploration of the complexities of love and the nature of poetry itself. Celebrating Swift's 50th birthday, it embodies a profound sense of achievement and introspection.

Poetry. SPRING IN NAME ONLY is Todd Swift's first full collection since his 2014 American Selected and marks the first with Black Spring Press. Responding to the age of Brexit and Covid-19, these are lyric modern poems that take their bearings from both Auden and Empson, F.T. Prince and Dylan Thomas-as such, they seek to explore the '40s style of heightened rhetoric, emotion and personal myth Swift has elsewhere celebrated, as in his edition of the Collected Tiller. Fusing irony and sincerity, confession and oratory, they build a bridge of eloquence, with which to address the key themes of Swift's now-36-year career as a published poet of international stature: fear of death, anxiety in life, faith, despair, love, desire, empathy and critique. No other contemporary poet is as willing to push language to the pitch of perverse stylishness, in the services of poetic majesty. Here springs a restorative fluency that raises the bar.

Christmas 2021, Todd Swift was in ICU, close to death. His heart had failed. A selection of new and older poems, published as a fundraiser for Todd, who cannot currently work, or indeed, face anything much more stressful than an episode of Gardener's Question Time...

In OPTICIAN TO THE STARS, the British-Canadian Todd Swift, one of the leading poet-editors of his generation, takes a look at life with and without rose-tinted specs, considering the sublunar world in all its beauty and horror. The collection favours briefer, more epigrammatic poems, often composed on his iPhone while waiting for blood tests or unable to sleep. For the past two years have seen Swift survive a blood clot on his heart, and a life-changing diagnosis. Not a diary of disease and recovery, and never seeking easy epiphanies, the poems nevertheless unfold a tapestry of humane, witty, and often formally-delightful perceptions. From remembering poets who have died, to celebrating seeing a movie star from Mad Max: Fury Road cycling past, these are poems always seeking to see things, and say things, with craft, skill, elegance, and joy.

Poets appearing in the anthology are: Alan Dunnett, Alex Bell, Alex Houen, Ali Lewis, Amy McCauley, Andrew Fentham, Annabel Banks, Becky Cherriman, Ben Ashwell, Cato Pedder, Claire Quigley, Clarissa Aykroyd, Colin Dardis, Daisy Behagg, David Spittle, Debris Stevenson, Edward Doegar, Elizabeth Parker, Erica McAlpine, Erin Fornoff, Françoise Harvey, Holly Corfield-Carr, Ian M. Dudley, Isabel Rogers, James Nixon, Jason Eng Hun Lee, Jen Calleja, Jessica Mayhew, Karl O'Hanlon, Katherine Shirley, Liz Quirke, Lorna Collins, Maria Isakova-Bennett, Matt Howard, Matthew Paul, Matthew Stewart, Michael Naghten Shanks, Niall Bourke, Pierre Ringwald, Richard Scott, Rishi Dastidar, Roisin Kelly, Samantha Walton, Samuel Tongue, Stewart Carswell, Tess Jolly, Tiffany Anne Tondut, VA Sola Smith, Victoria Kennefick, Wes Lee.