Ink Stone

(Paperback, Main)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The best ink stones are slates from Chinese riverbeds, but in the long history of their use these have all been found. As one expert writes, 'the better the stone, the smaller and more consistent the particles will be and the denser the ink'. These new poems by Jamie McKendrick have a remarkable density of ink. They explore the grain, or 'tooth', of the natural world with unusual and discomforting detail at the same time as they chart the medium they work in - not only what the eye sees, but the eye itself: its structure and structurings. These poems open onto conflicting perspectives of home and abroad, the domestic and the wild, the natural and the uncanny, elegy and celebration.

Reviews

"Acclaim for his previous collection, The Marble Fly (1997): 'Consistently excellent... where McKendrick scores is in his expert salvaging of beauty from squalor, wit from adversity, delicacy from grossness.' Michael Hofmann

Author Bio

Jamie McKendrick was born in Liverpool in 1955. He is the author of three volumes of poetry, including The Marble Fly, winner of the 1997 Forward Prize for Best Collection. He is the editor of the forthcoming 20th-Century Italian Poems (to be published by Faber in 2004) and is completing a translation of the poetry of Valerio Magrelli. A selection of his poems is available under the title Sky Nails: Poems 1979-1997.