Description
Book SynopsisA long-awaited second collection of poetry that exlpores both public and domestic themes with great skill, sensitivity and accessibility. Memory, the powers of art and the limits and responsibilities of 'free expression' are themes explored with rigour and humanity.
Trade Review"The poems of Stephen Boyce have an enviable assurance: clear, well-crafted and precise, they have an air of knowing where they are going, and invariably find their destination in an elegant closure. He is a master of the simple but telling phrase." - Roger Caldwell "In time of war, a woman 'darns to the ticking of clocks'. In peace, a child sees through a telescope 'all the life I ever wanted'. The music of Stephen Boyce's brief, intense poems quietly reveals both pain and joy, 'in the comfort of remembered song'." - Alison Brackenbury "Stephen Boyce is the master of surprising similes: carriages 'jolting like the lurch of camels', the hole in a sock 'like a tonsured head', a face 'red as a pomegranate flower'. Written with considerable poetic skill and emotional warmth, his perceptive cameos of lives, nature and art are finely-tuned. The Sisyphus Dog augments Stephen Boyce's rapidly growing reputation admirably." - Robyn Bolam
Table of ContentsContents Counting the Pips 1 Threads 3 Chai Wallah 4 Home from the War 5 Harvesting Tea 6 Telescope 7 A Certain Slant 8 Correspondence 9 Kernels 10 Washing Day 11 Cuban Heels 12 Change of Address 13 The Gift 14 Mother Explains the Value of School 15 Visitors 16 Ways and Means 17 David Niven's Smile 18 Sky Writing 19 Counting the Pips 20 Protected Species 21 A Gift Forever 22 Vows, Late Summer 23 Marking the Place 25 Going South 27 The Lesson 28 Convalescence, St Remy 30 Cote Vermeille 31 Stones 32 Stargazing 33 Reflection 34 Marking the Place 35 Tracking 36 Three Cliffs Bay 37 Laugharne 38 Vital Signs 39 The Sisyphus Dog 40 A Boat Named for You 42 And Snow in the South 44 Prospects 45 The Principle of Uncertainty 47 Spotting Red 49 The Principle of Uncertainty 50 Figure with Raised Hands 51 Burnt Chair 52 Illuminating the Whitworth 53 The Palette 54 Riverlight 55 A Brush with Renoir 56 Four Portraits 57 The Fox 59 Observing Beckett 60 Go Figure 61 Interrogation Scenes 63 Scanned 65 The Safe Side 66 Rescued 67 Volcano 68 Another Place 69 Dust in the Sunlight 70 Moving Image 71 Interrogation Scenes 72 The Security of Regulation 74 Worlds Apart 76 Pretty as a Picture 77 Trace Memory 78 Easing the Aching 79 Counting
