Description
Book SynopsisExurbia is the name of the urban fringe at the outer limits of suburbia. These poems begin here, characterised by edges, transition and change. In the assured lyric voice for which Andy Brown's poetry has become well known, they pay meticulous attention to where and how we make our homes. The poems of the book's central sequence are elegiac versions inspired by the Argentinian poet Borges, gazing over the city's blurred outskirts at dawn and sundown, while the book's final poems reach fully ex urbia, arriving at woodlands and moors, rivers and estuaries. Here, from the edge of the shoreline, they head out to sea before making a circular migration back home.
Trade Review'A contemporary goliard with an emotional range. The aural landscape that Brown creates is remarkable.' James Sutherland-Smith 'A love of language and willingness to play with music, meaning and the reader's expectations and perceptions.' Poetry Review
Table of ContentsLost Shoes 3 Caliology 5 Hamlin Lane 6 The Last Thatch 7 Foreign News 8 Things 9 Becoming 11 Happiness 12 A Lover's Discourse 13 Self Portrait at the Year's Turning 15 Blackbird 16 Suburban Plot 17 Cemetery Song 19 'The Rain Falls Gently on the Town' 20 After Bottling 21 Picking Bullaces 23 Rewriting the Ground 24 Selvage 25 Home / Leaving 28 2 The Outskirts 33 3 Homing 41 Lambing at Gwernllertai 42 The Woolbrook 43 Pen y Fan 44 How to Pay Attention 45 The Wood for the Trees Crow Wedding 47 On Coupling 49 Two Birdstrikes 50 Nocturne 51 Forest 52 Learning the Names 54 Harbour Blues 55 The Storm Berm 56 A Beach 57 Seascape with Kites and Gulls 58 Song of the Lifeboat Men's Daughters 59 A Ship in a Bottle 60 Along the Tide Wash 62 It Happens When You Look Away 64 Matriline 65 Planktos 66 The Last Geese 67
