Deformations

by Dugdale, Sasha

• ISBN13: 9781784108984
• ISBN10: 1784108987
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2020-09-24
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize 2021

Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2020

An Observer Book of the Year 2020

Deformations includes two large-scale works related in their preoccupation with biographical and mythical narrative. 'Welfare Handbook' explores the life and art of Eric Gill, the well-known English letter cutter, sculptor and cultural figure, who is known to have sexually abused his daughters. The poem draws on material from Gill's letters, diaries, notes and essays as part of a lyrical exploration of the conjunction between aesthetics, subjectivity and violence. 'Pitysad' is a series of simultaneously occurring fragments composed around themes and characters from Homer's Odyssey. It considers how trauma is disguised and deformed through myth and art. Acting as a bridge between these two works is a series of individual poems on the creation and destruction of cultural and mythical conventions.

Author Biography

Sasha Dugdale is a poet, translator and playwright. She has published four collections of poetry with Carcanet, Notebook, The Estate and Red House. In 2017 she was awarded a Cholmondeley Prize. Between 2012 and 2017 she was editor of Modern Poetry in Translation. She is co-director of the Winchester Poetry Festival.