Biographical note: Simon Smith’s previous books are Fifteen Exits (Waterloo Press, 2001) and Reverdy Road (Salt Publications, 2003). His translations of Catullus and Pierre Reverdy have appeared in PN Review and Poetry Review. He was a judge of the Poetry Society’s 2004 National Poetry Prize and is librarian of the Poetry Library in London.
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EAN13: 9781844712540 ISBN-10: 1844712540 ISBN-13: 9781844712540 Author: Simon Smith Title: Mercury Series: Salt Modern Poets Product class: BC Language: eng Audience: General/trade BIC subject category: CTCH1 Publisher: Salt Publishing Pub date: 01-Mar-06 Extent: 176pp Height: 216 mm Width: 140 mm Thickness: 10 mm Weight: 264 gms Supplier:Gardners Books Supplier:Ingram Book Group Supplier:Inbooks (James Bennett) Availability: IP Price: GBP 11.99 Price: USD 17.95 Rights: World
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description/annotation: This remarkable new volume sports the brevity and cheek of Martial’s epigrams, providing the excuses and occasions – Mercury is a book of pith, turning on an urban-knowing wit, a rag-bag of flip, it embraces the complexities of ordinary language and expression. Veracity sounded through fleeting moments; these are poems that say difficult things simply.
Main description: Simon Smith’s Mercury comprises three sections or “books” filled with his characteristic gem-like poems. As with his earlier collection Reverdy Road, Smith’s poems demonstrate tremendous wit and profundity tempered by lightness of touch. This is a wonderfully accessible collection which casts a knowing eye on Roman classics and contemporary life.
This remarkable new volume sports the brevity and cheek of Martial’s epigrams, providing the excuses and occasions – Mercury is a book of pith, turning on an urban-knowing wit, a rag-bag of flip, it embraces the complexities of ordinary language and expression. Veracity sounded through fleeting moments; these are poems that say difficult things simply.
Mercury is Simon Smith’s third full-length volume of poetry.
On Reverdy Road:
“When asked to name my favourite Salt book for 2003 my answer was Simon Smith's Reverdy Road … it was such a surprise … reading so many [images] together, they exploded into clarity …” -Tim Allen, Terrible Work
“Smith is master of the deceptively casual poem…. At its best … [his] use of the short form over so many pages achieves an effect comparable to a villanelle.” -Simon Coppock, Poetry Review
“The Jack Lemmon of English poetry.” -Geraldine Monk
Table of contents: Mercury Buzz Lorca Second Coat Tint Mending Wall Language Timber Meanwhile Radio Orpheus Aide-memoire Twelfth Rain Cube Moves Bet Wit Tee Hee Heaps Of Slips Light Day One Puts You in the Picture Polyester Cotton Mix Who’s Whose Reality Warm Rain Over the Page Gum Spots Lone Star Puzzle Now Air-Shaped New Day Just Started Finishing Touch Cobalt Same Chair Comfy Easy Air Noir Cold Lake Coat Advantageous Thing Smell Baltic White Why Do Iced Water Paper Clips Direct Light Soup Air Thin Blue Felt Utopia Station Video Black Chinks Flip-flop Clearly Fizz On the Instant First Aid Box [Unfinished] Rain Thump Side to Side Cries Agree Image Rain Square One Fib Zap Bam Pow Air Dead Spot Pale New Management Whichever Finish Off Waste Ground In Reality Off We Go Soundtrack Note As If Boughs Warm Crossings Out Nothing But Face in Light Traadaa Oh, Yes Cloud Slip Ons Wow Spring Surrounding Areas Thick Solid State Quiet Breeze An Illustrious Record Err Um Choice Melted Paper Cow Forward Cold Another Big Day Big Day Grey, in Theory Old Ticket Happy Dish Coup Orange Sub Station Echo Round Simon Choice Thin Air White Acrobats White Is As Writing Shiny Beach Constellation To Moment Cloud Pfuff Theseus’ Dad Surveillance Camera Formal Solutions A Harsh Light Michelle Those Days Silver Coins Dear Story So Far The Good Bit Realism Made Copy Flit Hum One Remove Made Structureless Film
Unpublished endorsement : Simon Smith has a fresh, compelling voice, which simultaneously draws you in and holds you at bay. This collection of poems manages to be personal and yet objective, witty and yet emotional, pared-down and epigrammatic but at the same time sharp, colloquial and strange. An impressive achievement.
Nicci Gerrard
Unpublished endorsement : Simon Smith’s poetry at first seems to hurtle, pushing from high-speed line-break to line-break through love, through outraged bewilderment (hurdle and hurt), through the craftily recycled throwaways of modern phrase. As poem overlaps with poem, there’s the effect, though, of detail being traced over preceding detail, a musical refrain or a decorative pattern emerging through sequences that replay and transmute their own elements, slowing the tempo down as they create dwellings-on, lyric memory, improvising with the sonic shapes they have initiated. Mercury is Simon Smith at his best.
Richard Price, nominated for the Whitbread Prize 2005
Unpublished endorsement : The Jack Lemmon of English poetry.
Geraldine Monk
Review quote: Smith is master of the deceptively casual poem.
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