To Abandon Wizardry (Paperback)
Matthew Caley
Sold by Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks Seller since 12 October 2005
New - Soft cover
Condition: New
Ships within U.S.A.
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketSold by Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks Seller since 12 October 2005
Condition: New
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketPaperback. To Abandon Wizardry, Matthew Caley's seventh collection, speeds through a world where it's harder and harder to tell what's 'real' and what's not.Where our political and cultural reality seems so unbelievable, we search for a plot and find one that comes from the Harry Potter playbook.Our sky proves CGI, our touchstones AI. Our screens full of wonders, our streets full of decay. We could nod at Deep Fake, QAnon, fake news versus the 'truth' of official news, all manner of waning national myth or ponder the elsewhere we always think of escaping to, that will no doubt prove equally illusory. Set within this almost parallel world, To Abandon Wizardry features a long central poem where someone enjoys an alfresco Americano in Shadwell, London, while in dialogue with a mesh-protected sapling that transmits all the polyglot talk of the city. Either side of this we encounter revenants, disembowelled wizards, talking horses and flying houses. To Abandon Wizardry forges its aesthetic out of the simulation, hyper-association, and over-stimulation of living in the 21st Century. And it's all true. To Abandon Wizardry, Matthew Caley's seventh collection, explores a world where it's harder and harder to tell what's real and what's not. Where our political and cultural reality seems so unbelievable, we search for a plot and find one that comes from the Harry Potter playbook. Our screens full of wonders, our streets full of decay. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
Seller Inventory # 9781780376752
To Abandon Wizardry, Matthew Caley's seventh collection, explores a world where it's harder and harder to tell what's real and what's not. Where our political and cultural reality seems so unbelievable, we search for a plot and find one that comes from the Harry Potter playbook. Our sky proves CGI, our touchstones AI. Our screens full of wonders, our streets full of decay. We could nod at Deep Fake, QAnon, fake news versus the 'truth' of official news, all manner of waning national myth, or ponder the elsewhere we always think of escaping to, that will no doubt prove equally illusory.
Set within this almost parallel world, To Abandon Wizardry features a long central poem where someone enjoys an alfresco Americano in Shadwell, London, while in dialogue with a mesh-protected sapling that transmits all the polyglot talk of the city. Either side of this we encounter revenants, disembowelled wizards, talking horses and flying houses, as the book forges its aesthetic out of the simulation, hyper-association, and over-stimulation of living in the 21st century. And it's all true.
'The games Caley plays with simile and metaphor, the word-play, the close observation and the startling timeshifts all create a surface texture that can resemble Surrealism but which usually turns out to be based on a close observation of reality, or, as the poem put it, 'existence without plot' (the bay tree tells the coffee-drinker to 'steal / god's breath'). As Gide said of Henri Michaux, Caley 'excels in making us feel the strangeness of natural things and the naturalness of strange things.' However much one reads Matthew Caley's poems, I suspect one will always be pulling something new from them.' – Dominic Rivron, Stride Magazine, on To Abandon Wizardry
Matthew Caley’s Thirst (Slow Dancer, 1999) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and followed by The Scene of My Former Triumph (Wrecking Ball Press, 2005), Apparently (Bloodaxe Books, 2010); his ‘lost second collection, Professor Glass (Donut Press, 2011); and his later collections, Rake (Bloodaxe Books, 2016), Trawlerman's Turquoise (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and To Abandon Wizardry (Bloodaxe Books, 2023). His work has been included in many anthologies, including Roddy Lumsden’s Identity Parade (Bloodaxe Books, 2010) and John Stammers’ Picador Book of Love Poems. He also co-edited Pop Fiction: The Song in Cinema with Stephen Lannin (Intellect, 2005). He lives in London with artist Pavla Alchin and their two daughters.
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