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Biographical note: Phil Bowen was born in Liverpool in 1949 where he taught Drama until 1979. He has worked as a full-time writer, performer and teacher since 1994. Work from his first full collection ‘Variety’s Hammer’ was selected for The Forward Anthology of 1998. His biography of the Mersey Poets ‘A Gallery to Play to’ has recently been updated and re-published by Liverpool University Press and he has written four plays for the stage.
BIC Basic
EAN13: 9781844717576
ISBN: 9781844717576
Author: Phil Bowen
Title: Cuckoo Rock
Series: Children's Poetry Library
Product class: BC
Language: eng
Audience: General/trade
BIC subject category: YCET2
Publisher: Salt Publishing
Pub date: 01-Oct-10
Extent: 96pp
Height: 178 mm
Width: 110 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight: 144 gms
Supplier: Gardners Books
Supplier: Ingram Book Group
Supplier: Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability: IP
Price: GBP 6.99
Price: USD 9.95
Rights: World
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Short
description/annotation: Cuckoo Rock creates a magical, elemental, questioning journey in search of a lost tomorrow through fire, earth, air and water meeting lots of wonderful knockabout musical characters on the way in poetry that is various, heartfelt, witty, skilfully rhymed and beautifully rhythmic.
Main description: Cuckoo Rock overlooks Magical Valley, the potato caves and Cuckootown. It is the most wondrous, magical place. It is where the Singing Nettles are heard by the Yaffling Tree, where the band Jasper, Jade and Jet play at Sparkling Pond and where The Cuckoo Man comes to meet Ivy from Ivybridge, Cool Julie Dooley plus Bobby Bangle and Billy Bling. It is a place where they all gather to dance and sing.
It is also the place where Zenna the Mermaid and the mysterious Dream Gatherer watch the hilarious Splatfish and amazing electric fish light up the glimmering aqua-marine water.
But darkness is on the horizon. Demonica, the evil Queen of the Demons wants to stop all the fun. Demonica – with her vicious cat Woof, her three threatening ghosts and the gloomy giant Ogre Rock – all cast a menacing shadow over the whole of the valley. And they have plans to make things worse.
What can be done to keep the valley good and not let it all go bad?
Table of contents:
Contents
Acknowledgements
Cuckoo Rock
Magical Valley
Heaven Knows
This is the Way
Fern and Sting
Ways and Ways
Nine Birds
Magpie Finds
The Yaffling Tree
Ticking Sonata
Forces
Ogre Boulder
Nineteen Moonlights
Inside the Sunset
Ogre Rock
Ogre and Under
The Seventh Moonlight
Nearer and Nearer
What the Night Says
Demonica
The Night Soil Men
A Cat Named Woof
Inside Demonica
Who Trashed Me?
Three Ghosts
See a Ghost?
Night Soil Men Again
Playing Stones
Jasper, Jade and Jet
At Sparkling Pond
Electric Fish
Splatfish
Zenna
Morwenna
It's a Toot Toot!
The Cuckoo Man
The Dream Gatherer
Ivy from Ivybridge
The Ballad of Bobby Bangle and Billy Bling
Cool Julie Dooley
The Famous Five
What Bobby Asked Billy
Demonica Hated it All
What Don, Den and Doug Said to Billy and Bobby
Make Me This
What it All Says
The Magic Thread
Happy Valley
As Far As We Could
Good Signs View excerpt as PDF:
 Click here to view a sample (121 KB)
Excerpt from book:
This is the Way
This is the way
And here is the gate
You can come all the way
But you’ll have to wait
For excitement
Wait for the thrill
Of crossing that bridge
To Tinner’s Mill
Wait for what ticks
Then for the tock
These amazing tricks
Around Cuckoo Rock
Wait for the fun
All the wild romance—
When the Cuckoo Man comes
When he starts to dance
When he does whatever
And whatever that seems
Then wait for the girl
Who gathers dreams
So stay in the moonlight
Stay for a wish
Wait by the pond
For electric fish
Then stand on the hill
High on the ridge
Call out to Ivy
From Ivybridge
And listen to the mermaid—
The song she sings
Listen to jingling
Jangling things
Listen in a place
Where you hear the most
Then listen in the darkness
Listen for a ghost
Listen to the ‘toot-toot!’
Listen to the drum—
As magical music
Is bound to come
From sounds in the valley
Sounds on the wing
And those singing nettles—
Fern and Sting
Unpublished endorsement: At a time when playtime is sanitised and childhood as eroded as a blasted Tor, we need books like this. A unique collection of magical poems. Peter Dixon Unpublished endorsement: Cuckoo Rock lies just over the border from Charles Causley's Cornwall, and like that sly quiet Cornish master Phil Bowen lets the spirits of the place and the echoes of true folk songs lead him into curious and thrilling spaces just beneath the surface of our world. Philip Gross Unpublished endorsement: Phil Bowen’s poems explode, dazzle, sing Cuckoo Rock and Ogre Boulder, bring on ghosts and splatfish, bouncing, mystery characters – Cool Julie Dooley, Bobby Bangle and Billy Bling, Demonica and more. Hectic, electric, fun on the run … Katherine Gallagher Unpublished endorsement: Phil Bowen here displays a treasure trove of poetry. I recommend this book for readers of all ages. Emmeline Armitage |
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