Ghost & Other Sonnets (Salt Modern Poets S.) - Softcover

Monk, Geraldine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844717321 ISBN 13: 9781844717323

Publisher: Salt, 2009

Synopsis

Ghost & Other Sonnets will disturb and delight. Divided into three sections the sequence begins with the Ghost Sonnets. Using traditional ghost narratives Monk condenses them into the tightly controlled sonnet form and twists them into something totally new. Aficionados of ghost stories will revel in this reinvention of a popular genre. In the second section, & Sonnets there is a drastic mood change as personal experience and harrowing news items root the poems into the mundane world of everyday existence. Some of these poems delves into the dark reality of ‘unnatural’ happenings: the tragedies of the Beslan massacre or the Chinese cockle pickers whilst others rescue the banal and sweep it off into the realms of the fantastical. The final section, Other Sonnets inhabits the cusp between Ghost and &. Here chance and inexplicable coincidence meet in the ghostly multiplications of language.

Working within the conventional form of the sonnet this sequence is on the surface one of Monk’s most accessible works but the simplicity is deceptive as each poem shifts and veers into unexpected complexity. Words shimmy down the page to their unpredictable conclusion leaving the reader delighted, disconcerted and baffled. Monk brings together disparate strands of uncertainty in a fragile world and she does it with her usual tenderness, ferocity and humour.

About this title

About the Author

Geraldine Monk was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1952. Since first being published in the 1970s she has written six major collections of poetry and numerous chapbooks. Her writing has appeared extensively in the both the UK and the USA. As an extension to her activities in poetry she collaborates with many musicians including Martin Archer, Charlie Collins and Julie Tippetts. A collection of essays on her poetry, The Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk, edited by Scott Thurston, was brought out in 2007 by Salt Publishing.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

10

An unearthly grown so sickly he

Died girlish young: translucence fixed in

Marble. In effigy without relief

Upon his death bed bound in medieval

Fug. Chapel-rot. The Ship of Fools sails

Upon the walls through none the wiser

Centuries receding. Spellbound with

Voyage she placed her palms upon his arms

Steadying her vertigo. Neck crane. Surge of

Flux. A tightening grasp of marble

Hand so slight the delicate light passed

Through its captive static: clasping hers in horror.

Sweetheart stoned in death. Please release her.

Let her go. Your tiny hand is frozen.

Edition details

• Publisher: Salt
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844717321
• ISBN 13: 9781844717323
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80