Richard Marggraf Turley

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Biographical note:  Richard Marggraf Turley was born in the Forest of Dean in 1970 and moved to Wales when he was seven. He teaches in the Department of English and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844714438
ISBN:  9781844714438
Author:  Richard Marggraf Turley
Title:  Wan-Hu’s Flying Chair
Series:  Salt Modern Poets
Product class:  BB
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  CTCH1
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  01-Mar-09
Extent:  80pp
Height:  216 mm
Width:  140 mm
Thickness:  5 mm
Weight:  120 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 12.99
Price:  USD 23.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  Wan-Hu’s Flying Chair explores the ‘furious stillness’ of love and art. From Chinese legends to scenes from artists’ studios, these poems open apertures on twilit worlds, where the ‘elastic collision of lovers’ burns, ears clang to the ‘torture of air’, and ‘winged creatures quiver on springs’. Here, the voices of old masters and artists’ wives, of holy men ‘huddled round three-legged dings’ and steam engineers dissolve into a curious chorus. In this collection, language seeks to break the ‘well of gravity’ as it ‘tidies the dark.’

Table of contents:
Landing Party
The Jade Corridor
Suiting Up
Spindrift
Moon Songs
1. Wan-Hu’s Flying Chair
2. Elixir
3. Seventh Moon
Elisions
Forensics
Billiard Ball
Court Ladies of the Former Shu
Winter Wheat
Life Classes
1. Women’s Hour
2. Female Nude with a Mask
Afterlives
1. Blink
2. Queen of Scots
3. News from the Dead
4. The Apparently Dead
A History of Explosions
1. Tail of the Devil
2. Wan-Hu
3. Kuzka’s Mother
4. RX J0822-4300 (Neutron Star)
Castles
1. St Briavels
2. Goodrich
Three Palettes
1. In the Campo di San Polo
2. Untitled
3. Old Master
Harbouring
Umbels
1. Hush-Hush
2. Siren
3. Pang
Islands
Amulet
Thitherwards
Old Man of Tang
Beach
Garden
The Couple
Brothel Scene
View at Le Gras
A Guide to the Stars
Steerage
Delft Tile
Toads
Porcelain Dish
Dissolution
Vaulting
Where c is the speed of

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Excerpt from book:  

Elisions

The firm of Boulton and Watt sent 132 engines to the Caribbean between 1803 and 1830.

Since you ask how
it begins, it begins
with elasticity

of steam, with sun
and planet gearing,
wax and resinous

bodies. It continues
with inequality
of pressure, with want

of wind and water.
It’s put to work by the fly-
ball governors, Gale

and Long, and the am-
iable Pennant. I am
a man of sector and rack,

quadrant glass;I
calculate the economy
of heat. No, not

of planter class
myself. Look, these
latest drawings regulate

the speed of an engine,
describe the action
of vapour. Here, the descent

in the cylinder, and,
figure c, the condensate
and vacuum — and here,

here we find the endless
reservoirs. Each night,
this dream of dark

bodies. My valves move
by gears very similar
to Smeaton’s.

Previous review quote:  Another impressive aspect of The Fossil Box is the extraordinary range of the poet’s vocabulary, which means that many poems cannot be fully appreciated until they are read aloud.

Owain Wilkins
Poetry Wales

Previous review quote:  There’s little doubt that Marggraf Turley has a perfect ear. Every word counts, imported for both sound and sense.

Kenneth Steven
Planet

Previous review quote:  Satisfyingly visceral and unsentimental.

Alice Kavounas
Poetry Review

Previous review quote:  Immediately striking, the care for language, the feel for the sound and taste of words.

Niall Griffiths
Real Aberystwyth