Kelvin Corcoran: Hotel Shadow
Published 15 October 2010
Paperback, 104pp, 9x6ins, £8.95
/ $16
ISBN 9781848611429
Hotel Shadow continues Kelvin Corcoran's remarkable poetic venture begun with Melanie's Book in 1996; here, with characteristically rich lyricism, Corcoran explores Greece ancient and modern. Travelling out from the real Hotel Shadow in the low season, the work encompasses: Aristomenes and the ethics of terror; paternal affection; Xenophanes of Colophon; the origins of poetry itself and a subsequent history; family mythology and the vagaries of DIY.
[Download a sample PDF from this book here.]
"Kelvin Corcoran's recent work inhabits the imagination as a distinct sphere of abundance, drawn from reality as a celebration of the true scope of the mind." — Peter Riley, PN Review
"In taking the events of Ancient Greece and fusing them with contemporary
references, Corcoran, like Seamus Heaney in the Bog Poems, has
found a translocal correlative to the violent political events of his time.
Among the undergrowth, bushes, and trees of Corcoran's previous work—in
fact anybody's—this collection stands tall. Somebody
someday will do a study of poets' responses to the early 21st century, and
this book will be a necessary specimen. In the meantime, I'd urge any T.S.
Eliot Prize selectors reading this to proactively seek out Backward Turning
Sea." —Alistair Noon, Eyewear (online)
"As in Corcoran's previous works, the living and the dead are one and the same in Backward Turning Sea (as he wrote previously, the dead are 'invisible everywhere inside the picture'): poetry is the strange logic of that contract. You really should read it." —Andy Brown, Stride (online)
Read an online review of this book at Litter here.
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