Paperback, 112pp, 9x6ins, £8.95 / $16
ISBN 9781848610477

This new collection brings together three elements central to the poetry and prose of David Grubb. There is the world of surreal identities, of wonders, disturbances, angels, fire sermons and celebrations where animals and people speak with both words and silences. There is the unfinished business of growing up in a strict religious household and seeking meanings beyond rituals and texts. In the third section of the book Albania, Bosnia and other locations create a world where nothing is certain, the past provides constant challenges and distant voices call. The darkness is broken by stars. Throughout the book there are ordinary people facing the extraordinary and variations of identity; James Agee and Walker Evans reporting the images of poverty, Christopher Smart hauling his hardships, Emily Dickinson in a radiance, people from Porlock, Gogol and the horse dream doctor and the pig man, poets and ghosts expressed with a distinct compassion and sensitivity and a wide range of styles.

John Burnside has commented on the "inventive and playful" in a previous collection and Penelope Shuttle on "the light that gets into the words". The Man Who Spoke to Owls provides a rich and radiant stream of propositions and identities, a way of reaching beyond.

Download a sampler PDF of work from this book.

Read an online review by Rachel Lehrman here.

 

UK trade orders via Bertrams Books or Gardners Books.
US trade orders via Ingrams or Baker & Taylor.

Please support your local bookshop by ordering Shearsman titles from them. If you prefer to order online, use the following links:

Order from the Shearsman online store

Order from amazon.co.uk

Order from The Book Depository

Order from amazon.com

Order from Barnes and Noble.com (USA)