|
“Smith’s debut shows imaginative ambition and rare internal variety, along with a tropism towards allegory. The title refers to the dazzling sequence—with prose poems, single-line stanzas, couplets and other unrhymed forms—in which an eternal circus represents all of humanity…The New York City–based Smith does well with the language that signals his U.K. upbringing: ‘in the centre/of the sheep-field lemurs somehow’ appear ‘at the lilt of the road This Roman road.’ Yet such scenes seem anything but antiquarian—they are fantastic and earthy, strange and inherited, classical and idiosyncratic, at once. Smith’s sequences have themes and forms rather than gimmicks, relying on imagination rather than on any biographical facts. His powers ought to help this book, and its author, last.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
A masterful debut collection by poet Lytton Smith, winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize.
Endorsements:
“…a subtle fusion of wit and whims.”—Mark Ford
Awards/Recognition:
PSA Chapbook Competition for Monster Theory 2006
Nightboat Poetry Prize 2007
|
|
LYTTON SMITH was born in Galleywood, England, and lives in NYC. His work has appeared in American Letters & Commentary, The Atlantic, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, and Verse. A chapbook, Monster Theory, was published by the Poetry Society of America in 2008, selected by Kevin Young. He helps run Blind Tiger Poets, an organization to promote contemporary poetry, and Mystery Bench Press. He received an MFA from Columbia University. He is pursuing a PhD in English at Columbia University. Lytton is named for Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the Victorian novelist who first coined the novel opening, "It was a dark and stormy night."
|
|
|
|
