A Straight Up Giant by Mark Waldron
Serious, comic, brave, cowardly, engaged, disengaged, urgent, unurgent, chattering chiffchaff, talking horses, unpretentious, pretentious, all of Gods creatures in Mark Waldron's fifth collection. Some of the poems give unfettered voice to Marcie, a character who has appeared in Mark Waldron's previous books.
I get nervous for Mark Waldron's readers – I can hear them begin to laugh a little, becoming too comfortable too quickly, while reading a poem of his and I want to warn themI want to yell at them to get out of the way, tell them that what's really happening is that they are about to get their hearts broken. Poor monkeys. -- Matthew Dickman
Clearly, Waldron has enough wit and imagination to sink a battleship, but perhaps the most interesting thing about his work is the use to which he puts features widely disseminated in contemporary poetry: randomness, whimsy, play and inconsequence…. When Waldron exploits these traits and turns them inside out, he shows an impressive elegance and rhetorical power, sustained despite a blizzard of broken registers and bits of this and that. His work reveals an authority it might at first seem far from seeking. The outcome is poetry that might count for something. -- Sean O’Brien * Guardian, on Meanwhile Trees *
His special skill is comedy, but not the standup sort. His speakers expose themselves self-accusingly, defiantly, or bashfully, while at the same time seeming snug as bugs in their tightly interlocked chainmail of precise language…. And there lies the delight of the collection: it gives us a rare sense of the Elizabethan richness of an English that’s available right now. Underneath the defamiliarising ingenuity, the political pretension-pricking and all the narrative verve and swerve, the diction is the real star of this invigorating book. -- Carol Rumens * Observer, Poetry Book of the Month, on Meanwhile, Trees *
He has since been publishing books steadily every few years and his latest, Sweet, Like Rinky-Dink, continues to develop his distinctive voice…. [an] accomplished and entertaining collection that showcases Waldron’s mercurial poetic voice. -- Kit Toda * TLS *
Clearly, Waldron has enough wit and imagination to sink a battleship, but perhaps the most interesting thing about his work is the use to which he puts features widely disseminated in contemporary poetry: randomness, whimsy, play and inconsequence…. When Waldron exploits these traits and turns them inside out, he shows an impressive elegance and rhetorical power, sustained despite a blizzard of broken registers and bits of this and that. His work reveals an authority it might at first seem far from seeking. The outcome is poetry that might count for something. -- Sean O’Brien * Guardian, on Meanwhile Trees *
His special skill is comedy, but not the standup sort. His speakers expose themselves self-accusingly, defiantly, or bashfully, while at the same time seeming snug as bugs in their tightly interlocked chainmail of precise language…. And there lies the delight of the collection: it gives us a rare sense of the Elizabethan richness of an English that’s available right now. Underneath the defamiliarising ingenuity, the political pretension-pricking and all the narrative verve and swerve, the diction is the real star of this invigorating book. -- Carol Rumens * Observer, Poetry Book of the Month, on Meanwhile, Trees *
He has since been publishing books steadily every few years and his latest, Sweet, Like Rinky-Dink, continues to develop his distinctive voice…. [an] accomplished and entertaining collection that showcases Waldron’s mercurial poetic voice. -- Kit Toda * TLS *
Mark Waldron was born in New York in 1960 and grew up in London. He works in advertising and lives in East London with his wife and son. He began writing poetry in his early 40s. He published two collections with Salt, The Brand New Dark (2008) and The Itchy Sea (2011), which were followed by two from Bloodaxe, Meanwhile, Trees (2016) and Sweet, like Rinky-Dink (2019). His fifth collection, A Straight Up Giant, is published by Bloodaxe in 2023.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781780376691 |
| ISBN 10 | 1780376693 |
| Title | A Straight Up Giant |
| Author | Mark Waldron |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloodaxe Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2023-06-22 |
| Number of pages | 112 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |