Paperback, 172pp, 9x6ins
Download a PDF sampler from this book here.

Rupert Loydell's second Shearsman collection is another large compendium of his many-faceted experimental writing.

"As a reader, you can't help but be drawn in — aren't they constantly surprising, he seems to say, the small occasions of our lives seen through this variety of poetic strategies. Echoes, alphabets, series and collage are part of the 'sense of play and pleasure' with which Rupert Loydell discusses how he might make 'order from disorder'. And along the way, you laugh, you groan, you're struck by a memorable phrase (well, several) you have to write down, by a new way of thinking about—let's say—families, that rises beyond the personal. These are mixed media poems. They are serious and they are full of games. Running through them all is a quiet and open-hearted voice ready to embrace the discoveries language is capable of." —Jane Routh

Loydell renders with equal deftness the plainsong of direct statement and melodious phrasal waves of speech. While he acknowledges that it is ". . . easier to map out fictions and wallow in distant clouds that deal with linear time," Loydell gives terra firma its full due. His work displays engagement with the figurative "folded pocket map."

Loydell is unafraid to recognize nyctalopia as an emblem of contemporary life. He navigates the multidimensional spectrum that encompasses opposites, culminating in the potent, chanted image — "nothing more than a black square on a white field." This welcome volume by Rupert Loydell reveals the poet's innate capacity for expanding an already highly refined world view through experience. At the center of this sophisticated exploration is a refined sensibility willing to grapple with complexity and simplicity alike, and in the process, spare none of the richness. —Sheila E. Murphy