{"title":"Ralf Webb","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"rotten-days-in-late-summer-book-ralf-webb-9780141992730","title":"Rotten Days in Late Summer","description":"A TELEGRAPH AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR  LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE   SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE   'Impressive . . . tender, unflinching'  Guardian 'This is poetry in the grand tradition of annihiliation by desire. It's what the young are always learning, and the old, if they are wise, never forget'  Anne Boyer, author of The Undying 'Brilliant . . . heralds the arrival of a frank and vital poetic voice'  Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti 'Frank and alert . . . an important voice in British poetry'  Eley Williams, author of The Liar's Dictionary 'Direct and heart-breaking'  Alex Dimitrov, author of Love and Other Poems 'A rare thing . . . razor-sharp'  Julia Copus, author of This Rare Spirit: A Life of Charlotte Mew  In Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb turns poetry to an examination of the textures of class, youth, adulthood and death in the working communities of the West Country, from mobile home parks, boyish factory workers and saleswomen kept on the road for days at a time, to the yearnings of young love and the complexities of masculinity.  Alongside individual poems, three sequences predominate: a series of 'Love Stories', charting a course through the dreams, lies and salt-baked limbs of multiple relationships; 'Diagnostics', which tells the story of the death from cancer of the poet's father; and 'Treetops', a virtuosic long poem weaving together grief and mental health struggles in an attempt to come to terms with the overwhelming data of a life.  The world of these poems is close, dangerous, lustrous and difficult: a world in which whole existences are lived in the spin of almost-inescapable fates. In searching for the light within it, this prodigious debut collection announces the arrival of a major new voice in British poetry.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525573058833,"sku":"GOR011488495","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740551684369,"sku":"NGR9780141992730","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50132369965329,"sku":"GOR012131050","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345598091537,"sku":"CIN0141992735G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53157151277329,"sku":"GOR012304693","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0141992735.jpg?v=1751163457"},{"product_id":"strange-relations-book-ralf-webb-9781399713214","title":"Strange Relations","description":"'Remarkable... entertaining... deft... moving... refreshing' Daily Telegraph  'A richly rewarding account of a resonant cultural moment' Guardian  'Textured literary portraits of the masculine mind and body' Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance  In October 1960, James Baldwin and John Cheever spoke on a panel together at San Francisco State College. The troubled state of American society was under discussion, which Baldwin incisively diagnosed as a 'failure of the masculine sensibility'.   Strange Relations explores this crisis in mid-century masculinity and the lives and works of four bisexual writers who fought to express and embody alternate possibilities. Building on Walt Whitman's philosophy of the love between men, Ralf Webb considers the ways in which Tennessee Williams and Carson McCullers, as well as Cheever and Baldwin, resisted in their art, as well as in their relationships, the damaging expectations of contemporary gender and sexuality.  With a curious, intelligent and sensitive gaze, Ralf Webb sheds new light on each writer. Together, these artists offer a powerful and moving argument for a transformative new masculinity, grounded in fluidity, love and intimacy.  'Webb's writing is of a quality rarely seen, and his book returns you to the world slightly changed, equipped with another angle of vision on the quiddity of man' Diarmuid Hester, author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears  'Impeccably well researched and hugely enjoyable' Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special  'Wise, hopeful, and exquisitely written' Will Tosh, author of Straight Acting","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49980896215313,"sku":"NGR9781399713214","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52769331216657,"sku":"NLS9781399713214","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1399713213.jpg?v=1750890654"},{"product_id":"day-is-fresh-book-ralf-webb-9780857485045","title":"The Day Is Fresh","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50555880407313,"sku":"GOR013997763","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50789951078673,"sku":"GOR011971750","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857485040.jpg?v=1750704194"},{"product_id":"strange-relations-book-ralf-webb-9781399713252","title":"Strange Relations","description":"From a Forward Prize shortlisted young British poet: An investigation of masculinity, bisexuality and queerness, routed through the lives and works of four mid-century writers","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51202335375633,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51202335703313,"sku":"NGR9781399713252","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1399713256.jpg?v=1750755316"},{"product_id":"highway-cottage-book-ralf-webb-9781802068924","title":"Highway Cottage","description":"Following his Forward-prize shortlisted Rotten Days in Late Summer, Ralf Webb's breathtaking second poetry collection summons the West Country of his youth, a place where the real and the magical, folklore and modernity, life and death, collide  ‘Ralf Webb is an ethnographer of the present. He is interested in everyday life in the extreme’ Peter Gizzi   Highway Cottage weaves the story of a strange homecoming. A young poet travels to the heart of the English countryside – back to the West Country village where he grew up. Descending into the valley where the small riverside community still resides, he finds himself within a dreamlike landscape, peopled by uncanny figures: drone operators and hunters; half-familiar friends; local historians, and braying councillors trying desperately to oust a community of Travellers. Hovering between reality and folklore, the locale is at once idyllic and in decay; the visitor is both unsettled and soothed by it. Slowly, we start to sense that both villagers and poet might be under threat – not just from the future, but from the past.  This book-length sequence of poems represents a ground-breaking artistic achievement by acclaimed poet Ralf Webb. Blending the eerie musicality of children’s rhymes with echoes of traditional balladry and free verse, the collection swells to an extraordinary chorus. With great clarity and affection, but not a trace of sentimentality, Webb conjures a precise vision of a rural community, surfacing the deep and urgent tensions – personal, political, and environmental – that run through Britain today. The result is a unique portrait of contemporary country life, enchanting and unnerving in equal measure.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51631230386449,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51631230583057,"sku":"NGR9781802068924","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51904667910417,"sku":"GOR014455473","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52597210775825,"sku":"NLS9781802068924","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53359713452305,"sku":"GOR014875180","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1802068929.jpg?v=1769689047"},{"product_id":"strange-relations-book-ralf-webb-9781399713221","title":"Strange Relations","description":"From a Forward Prize shortlisted young British poet: An investigation of masculinity, bisexuality and queerness, routed through the lives and works of four mid-century writers","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53409415364881,"sku":"GOR014911551","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53410637054225,"sku":"GOR014912270","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781399713221.jpg?v=1776271475"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-ralf-webb.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}