A Smell Of Fish

Zusatztext

<p>The poems in<i>A Smell of Fish</i>connect and radiate like the spokes of a wheel: haiku, sestinas, poems beginning with a line by somebody else or sparked off by foreign travel, a version of Dante, a sea sequence set on the Suffolk coast, and - long overdue - Matthew Sweeney's own version of the old Irish poem where his namesake is turned into a bird.</p><p>In this, his seventh collection, we are back in a world where all explanations are withheld. 'If Beckett and Kafka come to mind', as Sean O'Brien wrote in his essay on Sweeney in<i>The Deregulated Muse</i>, 'they are not simply influences but kindred imaginations'. So we encounter a valley mysteriously filling with the smell of fish, second-world-war planes reappearing over London, a secret attic mural of a naked ex-lover, a cosmonaut abandoned on the moon, and a subterranean tunnel that runs the length of Ireland.</p><p>Whatever the subject, we are in the confident hands of one of the most imaginatively gifted poets now writing.</p>

Autorenportrait

Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal. Apart from his poetry, he has written children's fiction and edited three anthologies,<i>Beyond Bedlam</i>(with Ken Smith),<i>Emergency Kit</i>(with Jo Shapcott) and the<i>New Faber Book of Children's Verse</i>. Cape published his<i>Selected Poems</i>in 2002, and<i>Sanctuary</i>in 2004.

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