Of Love, Death, and the Sea-Squirt

by Greenhalgh, Chris

• ISBN13: 9781852244859
• ISBN10: 1852244852
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-01
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Summary

In Chris Greenhalgh's delightful, yet disturbing second book, we encounter a cannibalistic wife, a man trapped in a valley of women, a conjuror who spirits himself away, and a kinky mortician. There are poems on themes of love and death. The emblem of the seasquirt haunts the collection: a creature which, having fulfilled its life's task of finding a rock to cling onto and make its home, proceeds in an act of appalling self-slaughter to eat its own brain. The vivid imagery and narrative excitement which characterized his first book, Stealing the Mona Lisa (available from Dufour), feature strongly again in poems which sparkle with irreverent comedy and fierce satire. These poems explore the darkening spaces of public and private worlds in a language at once sophisticated, sensual, and alive.

Table of Contents

A Short History of Milk	9	(1)
Footloose	10	(1)
A Man in the Valley of Women	11	(2)
Augustus John	13	(1)
The Vengeful Wife	14	(1)
Gift of the Gag	15	(2)
Of Love, Death and the Sea-Squirt	17	(1)
Monkey Business	17	(2)
In the Aquarium	19	(1)
At the Gezirah Club	20	(2)
Love	22	(1)
The Vision Thing	23	(1)
Tact	24	(1)
My Funny Valentine	25	(1)
Without a Thought	26	(1)
Miscarriage	27	(1)
The Glass-Blower	28	(2)
Exposure	30	(1)
Two in the Twilight	31	(1)
The Story of the Senhora de O	32	(1)
Gift	33	(1)
After a Certain Silence	34	(1)
That Summer	35	(1)
Mothering Sunday	36	(1)
Aquacity	37	(2)
Turbulence	39	(2)
Morning in the Hotel	41	(1)
Lisbon: Good Friday, Looking Westwards	42	(2)
The Fan	44	(1)
Under the Volcano	45	(2)
Reading Between the Lines	47	(1)
Coco and Igor	48	(2)
Scandal	50	(1)
An Encounter	51	(1)
Exemplum	52	(1)
Cultural Contact	53	(1)
An Englishman's Home	54	(1)
In the City	55	(1)
Signs of the Times	56	(1)
Shadowplay	57	(1)
Staying Alive	58	(1)
The Resurrection Project	59	(1)
News from the Sky	60	(1)
The Last Seduction	61	(1)
Metropolis	62	(1)
Finishing Touches	63	(1)
Kaleidoscope	64