'A coolly marshalled, worldly intelligence seems to be able to take on any subject from the quotidian to the arcane. The language is alert to contemporary nuance and opulently, exhilaratingly multi-layered.' William Boyd
New collection of poems from prizewinning poet and translator.
With a number of highly-acclaimed poetry collections to his name, this well- known poet has produced a chapbook of enigmatic and beautifully-crafted poems, each of which is accompanied by an illustration by the poet who reveals himself as an accomplished artist. This will undoubtedly be a collector's piece.
The Marble Fly, is Jamie McKendrick's third collection of poems following The Kiosk on the Brink and his widely acclaimed collection The Sirocco Room. The title refers to an image on a Pompeian wall-relief and fuses McKendrick's interests in the classical world and natural history. These forty poems, each pertaining to a particular history--whether natural or unnatural, personal or impersonal--focus on modes of transport and their relation to the natural world. As eloquent as they are intricate, the poems work on both a literal and metaphorical level, and cover such topics as Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, the construction of canals, the first airplane, and spiders sent up into space in the Skylab.