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Release date: January 20, 2023
Subgenre: Speculative Poetry, Audio Book
About Michael Butterworth's Selected Poems 1965-2020:
Across Michael Butterworth's work, elements are reiterated but endlessly
transfigured - hitchhiking girlfriends, elm trees, the moon,
astronauts, the space race, collage artists, misophonia, marriage,
divorce, beached whales, clifftops, the sea, the seasons, mental block,
ale houses, the chemical laboratory, ambition, madness, pain, death and
impermanence, silver birch trees, suicide, Zazen, riots, train seating
indicators, camping, the Welfare State, crows and seagulls, the racist
English and Canada geese... are some of his subjects. The subjects of
destruction - war, the consumer society, 'progress', humanity's
inhumanity, the doings of men (and the necessity of a new woman),
galactic war, drug wars, hunting - are never far away, hopefully
countered by the tone of optimism found in his later poems inspired by
Buddhist philosophy. The effect is at once familiar and yet profound, in
language that has the confessional qualities and simplicity of early
influences such as Sylvia Plath and the Beats, and the later influence
of Zen poets such as Ryōkan. Occasionally the writing is startlingly
radical - a reminder of the poet's beginnings in the New Wave. A
collection such as this one from Space Cowboy Books is overdue, and
Complete Poems: 1965-2020 brings to more deserving attention a less
heard voice in modern poetry.
Audiobook with music by Phog Masheeen, Julie Carpenter, Field Collapse, Jean-Paul Garnier, and As Deviants Stagger.
Produced by Jean-Paul Garnier with a bonus track produced by Malcolm Whitehead.
Excerpt:
These strange things called trees
Book Trailer
Audio | Print
About Michael Butterworth:
Michael Butterworth (born 1947) is a British author, poet publisher and campaigner who first became known publicly as an author of New Wave science fiction. He later founded the publishing house Savoy Books with David Britton in 1976 and the contemporary art journal Corridor8 with Sarajane Inkster in 2009.
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