A Lens in the Palm

by Grovier, Kelly

• ISBN13: 9781903039885
• ISBN10: 1903039886
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-01
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

The themes that populate this innovative collection of poems confront a host of voices and philosophies. Along with the ghosts of Keats, Giotto, William Turner, and Spinoza, the landscapes of Louisiana, the coasts of Wales, the cloisters of Oxford, and the galleries of Paris and Rome are all summoned. Each work haunts the borderlands where the mystical and material clash and blur, and together they depict a universe that is both familiar and wonderfully strange.

Author Biography

Kelly Grovier is a lecturer in English and creative writing at the University of Wales–Aberystwyth. He is a regular contributor to The Observer and The Times Literary Supplement and is founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.

Table of Contents

The lens	p. 11
Moons	p. 12
The Consolation of Philosophy	p. 13
Ghosting	p. 14
The stars	p. 15
Conversions: the ruined statue of a saint	p. 16
Furcula	p. 17
The frequency	p. 18
There	p. 19
The recipe	p. 20
The line	p. 21
Gumbo	p. 22
What the ceiling said	p. 23
Mincing words	p. 24
Of thought - the train	p. 25
Midas	p. 26
Rodin's Balzac	p. 27
The ancient of days	p. 28
Hierakonpolis	p. 29
Extraction	p. 30
The ledger	p. 31
Not amnesia	p. 32
'Nor even yet quite relinquish -'	p. 33
The shed	p. 34
Tens and eight	p. 35
Via negativa	p. 36
Between stations	p. 37
Les Parapluies	p. 38
Rain, Steam, and Speed	p. 39
The easel of Mantegna	p. 40
A spider in Trinity College chapel	p. 41
Reflections on a steel teapot	p. 42
In the National Library of Ireland	p. 43
The triple tree	p. 44
Metaphysics	p. 45
The six fifteen	p. 46
Camping out	p. 47
Spinnings	p. 48
Strange currencies	p. 49
Shutters	p. 50
The ghost grove	p. 51
Tractatus	p. 52
The things of snow	p. 53
Working some things through	p. 54
The metal clasp	p. 55
The night is like a dinosaur	p. 56
Giotto	p. 57
April morning	p. 58
Flickering out	p. 59
A suite of bats	p. 60
Landscape with coffee and wings	p. 64
Philosophy of language	p. 65
Sight, unseen	p. 66
Lacewing	p. 67
Palms	p. 68
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.