Lee Smith

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Biographical note:  Lee Smith grew up in a small Cambridgeshire village. He worked for three years in the Ministry of Defence, until realising his youth had desaturated into a kind of dull shade of grey. A short, but enlightening spell living in Melbourne, Australia saw him write his first proper poems, inspired by a city that enticed his curiosity. He spent the next part of his life jumping between Melbourne and Cambridge, where he embarked on a degree in Writing at Anglia Ruskin University. A successful three years saw his interest in poetry develop, culminating in an exhibition of Away from the city as an installation of photographs and poems. Now, at 25, he lives in Cambridge and works as production manager for Salt Publishing. He likes tea (only a drop of milk, no sugar) and has a beard.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844718009
ISBN:  9781844718009
Author:  Lee Smith
Title:  Away from the City
Series:  Salt Modern Voices
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  CTCH1
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  01-Jun-10
Extent:  52pp
Height:  198 mm
Width:  129 mm
Thickness:  4 mm
Weight:  78 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 6.50
Price:  USD 9.95
Rights:  World

Short description/annotation:  Away from the City is an evocative collection of poems and photographs that observe the inhabitants of two cities on opposite sides of the world.

Set in Melbourne and Cambridge, these poems place you on each city's trains, buses and footpaths, witnessing the everyday interactions that embody urban life.

Main description:  Away from the City is an evocative collection of poems and photographs that observe the inhabitants of two cities on opposite sides of the world.

Set in Melbourne and Cambridge, these poems place you on each city's trains, buses and footpaths, witnessing the everyday interactions that embody urban life. From the daily commuter routine, to a struggling father's anguish, Away from the City captures images that so often become buried beneath the hectic consciousness of the city.

This innovative series is an exploration of the relationship between poetry, photography and place. These simple, everyday images transport you to the heart of each city to observe its inhabitants for yourself.

Table of contents:

MELBOURNE: AUTUMN TO WINTER
Epping Train
a.m.
Clarendon St.
Melbourne haibun
Northcote
p.m.
His day
The indispensable guide
jp
At the interchange
these mortgaged people
Shanghai Dumpling Restaurant
CAMBRIDGE: AUTUMN TO WINTER
Coach 727
Monday
Addenbrooke’s Hospital
Puddles
Away from the city
Cambridge haibun
At Cambridge station
stopped at fulbourn tesco
Devonshire Road
February
08:53
Flowers

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Excerpt from book:  

Unpublished endorsement:  Lee Smith’s poems and photographs reward exploration. The dialogue between the two cities and the poet’s experience of them is a subtle one. Like all good poems they refuse to see the everyday as mundane but make it something other. These two cities give up their differences and their similarities, and both allow us to see how the city can impact on how we, as humans, choose to live or sometimes just survive there.

Andrea Porter

Unpublished endorsement:  Writing in a deceptively simple, vivid style, Lee Smith has crafted a portrait of life on opposite sides of the globe that's much more than the sum of its observational parts. This elegant pamphlet announces the arrival of a poet with a fine ear, a sharp eye and a generous heart.

Andrew Philip