Nathan Thompson - the arboretum towards the beginning

Paperback, 80pp, 9x6ins

Download a PDF sampler from this book here.

Nathan Thompson mixes process and poetics with a dry wit, to produce texts that hold the reader's hand through landscapes of the tangential (with occasional diversions back to the straight and narrow). This first collection juxtaposes prose poems with more traditional verse idioms, to create a whole that can be read either as a kind of disjunct musical narrative or as a collection of free-standing associative post-lyrics.

"There is enough genuine strangeness in one line of Thompson's poetry to make my nightmares seem tedious. And yet there is tenderness in the ludic imagery, honesty in the vital self-consciousness and wit. This poetry poses the question, what if Absurdism were underpinned not by suspect political posturing, but by compassion? And its answer I'll be revisiting for years to come." —Luke Kennard

"...a remarkable first collection from an important new talent." (Ian Seed, Stride magazine)

Available only direct from Shearsman Books.