Book Launch, Art Jericho, 10 February

Back Room Poets with Art Jericho

present a poetry reading launching recent publications by members:

Mark Leech : Chang'an Poems
Jennifer A. McGowan : Life in Captivity
David Olsen : New World Elegies

Also featuring: Pat Winslow and Paul Surman

And your chance to view the Art Jericho exhibition:
William Cotterill, A Tangle of Ghost & Matter

Friday, 10 February 2012
Free admission. 7 pm for 7:30 pm.

Art Jericho | 6 King Street | Oxford | OX2 6DF



Mark Leech : Chang'an Poems:

http://thesamsmith.webs.com/originalpluschapbooks.htm#820667998

"Mark Leech’s Chang-an Poems are winningly sentimental and full of blunt-nosed brilliance. Built on a tripod of surveillance, where the omnipresence of state censorship meets personal censorship and immingles (sometimes brutalizes) a deeply affecting love story, Chang-an is a survival fight and a haunting reflection of our precipiced world at large.... Without question, the longevity of this sequence confirms Leech as one of the most illuminative poets of my generation."

James Byrne

Jennifer A. McGowan : Life in Captivity:

http://www.finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=628

“Bright-eyed and unblinking, Jennifer McGowan engages with stories, events and situations that embody lasting truths about human passion and illusion, suffering and endurance – the adventures of Odysseus, the appalling English witch-hunts, the condition of loneliness. At the heart of this shapely, significant chapbook is the tension between the divine spark and complete and utter earthiness. In one of several memorable dramatic monologues, the concubine of a divine, but pimply, dead pharaoh stares at his ‘solar barque’ and

…can’t help wondering

if when they weigh my soul

he’ll be clear-skinned and waiting,

and if he still snores.

The female viewpoint; gritty thought; wit; striking candour – an unafraid recognition of life’s richness and desolation; memorable detail; all these are underpinned by Jennifer McGowan’s graceful, subtle, quite lovely way with language.”

Kevin Crossley-Holland

David Olsen : New World Elegies:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599247615/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

“David Olsen is a poet who never repeats himself. His landscapes range from the cold beaches of New England to the hot deserts of Iraq, and he is a master of several styles, from the elegy to the sestina. He also visits some of the most brutal scenes from the last century, always with an eye to the victims. It has been a pleasure to read several of these poems as they were being forged.”

Merryn Williams