Sunday at the Skin Launderette

This is the first full collection of poems by Kathryn Simmonds. Her's is a fresh, lovely, accessible voice. She confronts the dilemmas of a young woman living in the city with considerable humour and a poignant grace. An element of surrealism often invades her poems, taking from the quotidian to the suddenly unsettling and strange, as when a secretary flies up into space, or a laundrette becomes a place for stripping off skin. She also approaches her themes and characters with an ironic tenderness, as in 'Snug' where world leaders mentioned in the news on a bedside radio are invited to share a nap with the speaker, thereby encouraging world peace. Particularly notable is the way she transforms the mundane, the "lull of 3 o'clock", so that days spent in dull jobs, on the bus, at the photocopier, suddenly become moments of expectation and beauty. In her poems, there is sense that anything might happen - and probably will.

ISBN 1854114611   Pages 195 ISBN13 9781854114617 (What's this?)   Part volume PBS Recommendation Publisher Poetry Wales Press   Volumes 1 Imprint Seren   Weight (grammes) 91 Format Paperback   Published in Bridgend Publication date 07 Feb 2008   Height (mm) 216 Library of Congress PR6069   Width (mm) 138 DEWEY 821.92   Spine width (mm) 16 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General

		The World Won't Miss You for a While		9
		The Boys in the Fish Shop		10
		Talking to Yourself		11
		The Dead are Dead		12
		Leftovers		13
		Reasons to be Cheerful		14
		Seahorses		15
		Before a Make-up Bag		16
		The Men I Wish I'd Kissed		17
		Moonlighting		18
		Women Dancing		19
		Precautionary Poem		20
		My Darling, My Cliche		21
		Five Solutions		22
		Whittington's Mistake		23
		Transfiguration		24
		At 8:53 p.m. my Television Breaks		25
		Snug		26
		Dictation		27
		Winter Morning		28
		Against Melancholy		29
		A Joy Forever		30
		Sunday at the Skin Launderette		31
		Eyelids		33
		The Woman who Worries Herself to Death		34
		Modern Pastoral		35
		News		36
		Taxi Drivers		37
		Rodin's Lovers Interrupt their Kiss		38
		Tate Modern		39
		Recycling, April		40
		Suburban Love Song		41
		More...

Winner of the United Kingdom's prestigious Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection

 Be the first to write a customer review