Stealing the Mona Lisa by Chris Greenhalgh
There is a characteristic lightness of touch and a restless comic energy to Chris Greenhalgh's first book. Inner and outer worlds combine in poems that crackle with satire, yet are lyrically affirmative and highly charged. He handles material at an ironic distance and in steady close-up, exploring both personal experience and the wider, weirder world of the media with vivid imagery and narrative excitement. For a first collection, the range is impressive, from a sensuous sequence of love poems to a debunking of the Apollo moonlandings and the culture of the free-market. Elsewhere, the desert and the shopping arcade are brought together, and the book features a large cast of diverse characters, ranging from Marilyn Monroe, an Elvis impersonator, and the trumpet player on the Titanic, to a religious cult-leader, the Royal Family and the Pope. The poems successfully domesticate American and European models, yet they enjoy a sensibility all of their own: beneath the playful mood and glittering surface, there frequently exists a sour, unsettling subtext and intimations of a darker tone.
Entertaining and bizarre.. When Chris Greenhalgh gets it right, which he often does, he is very good indeed. -- Nick Laird * Times Literary Supplement *
Sheer brilliance of language carries its own zest in easy intimacy. Greenhalgh writes with all his senses alert. -- Bill Turner * Poetry Review *
Sheer brilliance of language carries its own zest in easy intimacy. Greenhalgh writes with all his senses alert. -- Bill Turner * Poetry Review *
Chris Greenhalgh won a Gregory Award in 1992. He has published three collections with Bloodaxe: Stealing the Mona Lisa (1994), Of Love, Death and the Sea-Squirt (2000), and now The Invention of Zero (2007). His novel Coco and Igor was published by Headline in 2002, and made into a film with his screenplay. Born in Manchester, he lived for several years in Italy and Athens before returning to the UK to complete a doctoral thesis on postmodern American poetry. He is currently Academic Deputy Head of Sevenoaks School in Kent.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781852242862 |
| ISBN 10 | 1852242868 |
| Title | Stealing the Mona Lisa |
| Author | Chris Greenhalgh |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloodaxe Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1994-10-20 |
| Number of pages | 64 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |