A year of intensive close reading and personal reflection led to this uniquely entertaining collection of essays about poetry in general and one remarkable poem in particular: ‘In the dream of the cold restaurant’ by Abigail Parry.
Whether you’re a seasoned poetry reader or a curious newcomer, this engaging and constantly surprising book offers a generous, idiosyncratic take on what poetry is, what it does, and what it’s for.
From the author of Multiple Joyce: 100 essays about James Joyce’s cultural legacy.
Notices
“Here are fifty short essays and pieces of criticism—some slight; others more weighty—which together form a great exemplar of the fine art of digression. This book is an apparently Queneauvian exercise in close reading which rapidly spins out to encompass the value of poetry, language, and life its very self. It is a book not to be read in one sitting, but to be taken twice a day, perhaps, like medicine, strong coffee, or a good single malt, the kind of book that might make you want to go and write another book consisting of 50 short chapters. Collard is a great example of the tradition of the non-academic scholar—erudite, profound, witty, and wide-ranging.”
---C. D. Rose, author of The Blind Accordionist and Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea
“Not a manifesto or misery-memoir, more a metaphysical watchmaker’s manual, in which the perma-curious Collard disassembles and prods the cogs, springs and dials of poetry. Then he rebuilds: the poem, the page, himself. A slightly better world.”
---Melissa McCarthy, author of Photo, Phyto, Proto, Nitro
David Collard writes for print and online publications including the Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, 3:AM Magazine, gorse, Exacting Clam, White Review and others. About a Girl: a Reader’s Guide to Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing was published by CB editions and he contributed to the recent anthologies We’ll Never Have Paris and Love Bites.
He lives in London, where he organises cultish online literary gatherings. He has a website.