Daytime job commitments as well as sickness in the family etc. (yes, yes, “the mundane” demanding attention) have taken up all my time the last couple of weeks. That’s the reason for my absence. I apologize, but at least the worst is now over. Phew.
At least I have some good news! Take a look at this:
Yeps, that’s the complete cover for the excellent, lyrical collection of poetry from the very talented Paul StJohn Mackintosh — The Musical Box of Wonders. It is now OUT, folks!:-)
In a few weeks it will be available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles’ site, and other places, but you can already grab it here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-musical-box-of-wonders/15255859
Here’s the blurb:
This collection showcases imagination and lyricism, and confessional landscapes from the boundaries between culture and nature, mundane and divine, the everyday and the extraordinary. The volume brings together themes ancient and modern, Scottish and English, Asian and European, and contains the fruits of ten years spent living in Asia, including intensely personal poems about the writer’s family, all handled with great tactile strength, resourcefulness and a unique, poetic power. The result is a genuinely new voice, with a style and spirit seldom heard in British poetry for decades.
There’s no denying that Paul is an extremely talented poet — as this praise from the notable British poet Alan Brownjohn illustrates:
“Crammed with attractive detail handled with sensuousness . . . Poems that are in turns elegaicand entertaining, technically adept and resourceful, and treating a variety of themes Western and Easternwith grace and dignity. What more could one hope for in a collection?”
Paul’s first collection, The Golden Age (1997) also received high praise — “This book alone strikes me as among the most distinguished by younger Britishpoets known to me,” said Michael Hamburger. To quote but one of many positive critics.
So there’s hardly any reason to doubt that this new collection is worth buying. Also — to those horror afficionados among you readers out there, don’t forget that Paul’s story “The People of the Island” was one of the tales in the first volume of my hplmythos.com Series, Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales (http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/eldritch-horrors-dark-tales-%28hplmythoscom-vol-1%29/4708669 , or over at Amazon), to be highlighted with an Honorary Mention in Ellen Datlow’s volume 2 of Best Horror of the Year (2009, published by Night Shade Books: http://www.nightshadebooks.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=155 ).
Oh, and did I mention that you can buy this brand-new collection of poetry here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-musical-box-of-wonders/15255859 ? 😉
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Thanks, I have the book as well as the poet and I’m enjoying them immensely. Lilla
I’d be interested to read a peom or two from this new collection, and from ‘The Golden Age.’
Michael, it’s the author here 😉 You can read quite a few poems from the new collection on my website – see the link above. I’ll get around to pasting up a couple from The Golden Age as a retrospective too. Enjoy!