M.T.C. Cronin:<More or Less Than> 1-100
Published May 2004
Paperback, 140pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9780907562474
The second British collection by this extraordinarily talented Australian poet, who is creating a stir in several parts of the world. Poems 1-13 and 88-100 from this one-hundred poem sequence appeared in Shearsman magazine, issue 54, but the full scope of the piece only becomes clear with publication of the complete book: one hundred poems, where poem 1 has 1 line, poem 2 has 2 lines, all the way to poem 50 with fifty lines, 51 with 49 lines and back down to 100 which is a one-liner again. Like many forms, self-imposed or otherwise, Ms. Cronin uses this apparently restrictive structure to support a wonderfully original unfolding of verse.
Download a sampler PDF of work from this book here
WINNER OF THE C J DENNIS AWARD FOR POETRY, 2005 (THE VICTORIA PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS).
WINNER OF THE INNOVATION AWARD IN THE GOVERNMENT OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S 2006 FESTIVAL AWARDS.
"Cronin's meticulous attention to parity and pronoun, to the voices that flow through the poem, give this work a complexity and penetrating depth which carries a timeless theme—the issue of mortality—firmly into the 21st century." (Richard Owens, Rain Taxi, Winter 2004)
"To speak of the virtuosity of Cronin's performance is to give fair praise but insufficient. Her subtlety, intelligence and impeccable ear are sinewed through this strange book." Peter Pierce, Sydney Morning Herald, 16-17 October 2004)
"In striving to describe the overall effect of M.T.C. Cronin's bravura performance in [this book] it is difficult to trump Pedter Porter's 'precipitously oracular', quoted on the back cover. There is indeed s sense in which this poetry offers, as is the habit of oracular utterance, a distinctly slippery slope of meaning to be negotiated in following its 100 numbered poems as they increase in numerical sequence frm an initial single line to fifty and then, in a mirror reversal, decrease to the single line of poem 100 . . . It is a sequence Cronin has given us, and it is a richly rewarding, if sometimes perplexing one." (Jennifer Strauss, Australian Book Review October 2004)
UK trade orders via Bertrams Books or Gardners Books.
US trade orders via Ingrams or Baker & Taylor.
Order from amazon.co.uk
Order from amazon.com
Order from barnesandnoble.com