John Seed - New and Collected Poems

Paperback, 156pp, 8.5x5.5ins
Download a PDF sampler from this book here.

This major retrospective volume brings back into print the author's previous four collections of verse, and adds to them a large number of uncollected poems, written between 1990 and 2004. Published simultaneously with the extraordinary Pictures from Mayhew.

"Seed's work is about the tension and convergences between form as a developing or 'moulding' environment, which is both 'grid-like' and free, a place in which linguistic elements are allowed organic-play whilst being tightly controlled. […] He beautifully explores the detritus of Capitalist life, broken objects and produce, through precise detail, the ability to defamiliarise sound and movement and repetition. Emptiness, broken streets, bricks, objects and thoughts themselves, fragmented and ownerless as the detritus itself. This is a T.S. Eliot sensibility in which the language of language is itself objectified – mentions of verbs and grammar finding their way into lists of objects and details of the environment. […]

The London of Seed's contemplation is transformed, made alien, turned to a 'human matrix' both controlling and creative. The best of Seed's descriptions are spare, quiet, respectful of white space, and speak clearly out of silence." (Abi Curtis, Stride magazine)

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