“The poems in Scare Stories offer us exactly that: a series of richly populated narratives that show the contemporary moment as a grotesque and fearful nightmare. This is a world of war and refugees, high politics and helicopters, sex and suffering as entertainment. Somewhere at the root of things is money. It’s all delivered in sharp quatrains whose flamboyant rhyming makes it more brutal, not less. It’s a vision, in the Hieronymus Bosch sense, funny and horrifying, but it’s redeemed at last by our futile wishing for redemption. Scare Stories would have had Gottfried Benn cheering wildly, and if that's not a troubling idea I don't know what is.” Tony Williams
“David Clarke conjures up post-apocalyptic visions that are uncomfortably close to our present. All of humanity is played out here, from gamers to generals, the whole bitingly observed. Scare Stories is a frightening mirror, but it’s also compelling and hypnotic, I dare you to look away.” Claire Trévien
Scare Stories is a sequence of poems that is very unusual and very unsettling.
David Clarke's sequence-length pamphlet Scare Stories is published by V. Press in March 2017. Clarke's pamphlet, Gaud (Flarestack), won the Michael Marks Award in 2013. His first full collection of poetry, Arc, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2016 and was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize.
A sample from the pamphlet can be found below.
Buy Scare Stories now using the paypal link below.
From Scare Stories...
We buzz our
personal shopper in –
her face glitched on a tiny screen.
In this, the cocktail hour, we sheen
our gums with
bitters and sapphire gin,
recline as the
video wall dilates
with shots of ocean swell, segues
into copper sundowns. Displayed
across the
coffee table, the latest
linens, white,
but piped with clay
or teal, moccasins in ivory
suede. Our personal shopper’s very
much on the
money. We wave her away.
Launch Events
David Clarke will be doing his first reading of the pamphlet in a Nine Arches Showcase on Saturday, 13 May at St Andrew's Church, Cheltenham.
Doors Open at 4:30pm
From 5:00pm to 6:00pm
Ticket Price: £5.00 - £7.00*
*booking fee applies
Box Office: 07510143944 -
More info is available here.
He will also be launching a performance developed with Helen Dewbury of Elephant’s Footprint at 7.30pm on 30 June at Deepspace Works in Cheltenham.
Launch Events
David Clarke will be doing his first reading of the pamphlet in a Nine Arches Showcase on Saturday, 13 May at St Andrew's Church, Cheltenham.
Doors Open at 4:30pm
From 5:00pm to 6:00pm
Ticket Price: £5.00 - £7.00*
*booking fee applies
Box Office: 07510143944 -
More info is available here.
He will also be launching a performance developed with Helen Dewbury of Elephant’s Footprint at 7.30pm on 30 June at Deepspace Works in Cheltenham.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.