Synopsis

Intelligent, sensual, highly erotic, manly and beautifully mortal – Full Blood is the result of a fifteen-year labour of love. This is literature in its most empowered state, and poetry at its most radical, lyrical and affecting. Full Blood invites you in easily, and then turns into one of those books that you can’t put down because it has become your close friend.

John Siddique was born in 1964. His discovery of his local library when young began his life-long love affair with what words mean and how they sit together. He is the bestselling author of Recital — An Almanac, Poems From A Northern Soul, The Prize and now Full Blood. He is the co-author of the story/memoir Four Fathers.

He has contributed poems, stories, essays and articles to many publications, including Granta, The Guardian, Poetry Review, and The Rialto.

The Prize, published to wide acclaim in 2005, was nominated for the Forward Prize. His children’s book Don’t Wear It On Your Head was shortlisted for the CLPE Poetry Award in 2007. On publication in 2009, Recital was described as “one of the most important British poetry books of the last twenty years” by Lauri Ramey of CSULA. Jackie Kay describes Siddique’s writing as “A brilliant balancing act.”

Siddique is admired for his captivating readings and his infectious love of literature. He teaches poetry and creative writing in the UK and abroad, and has worked with The British Council, The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School and The Poetry Society. He has a website at www.johnsiddique.co.uk

Praise for this Book

‘John Siddique's new collection takes the reader down the street and round the world. This is a brave and a bold book of linked poems whose subjects range widely from love to hate, from war to peace, from childhood to adulthood, from the real world to the world of myth. Siddique is interested in everything. Tender and open-hearted, these poems are full of wonder at the power of love. Dreamy and yet direct, this is Siddique's most powerful collection yet.’ —Jackie Kay

‘In this beautiful new collection John Siddique seduces the reader with his life-affirming reflections on our mortality and a profoundly moving poetic interplay of tenderness, love and eroticism.’ —Dr. Claire Chambers

Reviews of this Book

‘Siddique's new poetry collection contains powerful reflections on love, loss, war, peace and alternative modes of living for these days of financial and political turmoil. In one sequence, The Knife, he discusses racism in northern England; in another, Reclaiming the Body, love and sex are described with tender honesty. Technically virtuosic yet direct and sensual, this is a collection I keep returning to.’ —Claire Chambers

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