Rake - Softcover

Matthew Caley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780372817 ISBN 13: 9781780372815

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2016

Synopsis

Throughout Rake, Matthew Caley's fifth collection, it can appear as if we are leafing through the oblique diary of an immortal time-travelling rake, one who is seeking his one true beloved through an heroic tally of amorous encounters, desperately trying to get beyond appetite; or possibly a number of parallel immortal time-travelling rakes; or maybe even someone, having drunk too many espressos, imagining themselves to be such a rake.<br /><br />The forms used are equally promiscuous: tanka, sonnets, refrains, poems sifted from or alluding to Les Liaisons dangereuses or Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, versions of Baudelaire, Bonnefoy and Corbière, an echo sonnet , sonnet-strings, mono-rhymers, a tonnet hybrid of sonnet and tanka and, most frequently, tanka used as a run-on stanza unit.<br /><br />Traversing the boudoirs of La Belle Époque, 80s Cold War Russia, ancient Egypt and the Wild West, to London 1910 or LA in the 1990s, but more often than not from these locations to the 24 hour neon of the contemporary city and back again in a micro-second, desire feeds lack (and vice versa) yet yearns for escape. What results is a series of beautiful, back-handed love poems.

About this title

About the Author

Matthew Caley is a tutor/mentor for the Poetry School and has also recently taught poetry at the University of St Andrews (twice), the University of Winchester and Royal Holloway University, London. His first collection, Thirst (Slow Dancer, 1999), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He has published six more since, four with Bloodaxe, Apparently (2010), Rake (2016), Trawlerman’s Turquoise (2019) and To Abandon Wizardry (2023). His work has featured in many anthologies, including Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2010), Poems of the Decade (Forward Worldwide, 2011), The Picador Book of Love Poems (Picador, 2011), Pestilence (Lapwing, Belfast, 2020) and Divining Dante (Recent Work Press, 2021). Prophecy Is Easy, a pamphlet of very loose versions from French twentieth century poets, was published by Blueprint in 2021. He’s read his work from StAnza in Fife – where he gave the StAnza Lecture 2020 – to the Globe Theatre, London; from Galway to the Czech Republic, to Novi Sad, Serbia. He lives in London with the Czech-born artist Pavla Alchin. They have two daughters, Iris and Mina.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1780372817
• ISBN 13: 9781780372815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80