London Bridge is Simon Smith’s fourth collection of poetry, and his third with Salt. New to this accessible book is the way each poem can stand-alone or feature as part of the main sequence, a sequence which has its roots, with its author, in the place and mindscape of South East London. This book is a new development for Smith, explicitly locating the poems in the geography and history of this almost bypassed corner of the Capital, taking in the ghost traces of Blitz bomb damage; the everyday life of the Old Kent Road and A2 grafted over the first arrival of tramping Roman legions; the ghost of Robert Browning; and Telegraph Hill, the navigation point for airliners, holidaymakers, terrorists and business people into Gatwick and Heathrow. This collection continues too the humour and wit of Reverdy Road and Mercury with a nod towards the New York School, via the world of virtual reality and the vogue for poetry anthologies, as well as the incisive precisions of e.e. cummings or William Carlos Williams.
Versions of poetry from other languages also figure in London Bridge. The Orpheus and Eurydice story is revisited in Rilke’s re-telling; a translation of Apollinaire’s last poem, `The Auburn Stunner’ appears tracing the junctures and disjunctures of war and love; and the poems on the death of children by the Roman poet Martial lend a darker vein and further dimension to the collection.
This is a book that sifts and collects the data of a life lived in the City amidst the immediate and contingent camera-shake and confusions of the everyday.
- ISBN10 184471490X
- ISBN13 9781844714902
- Publish Date 5 May 2010
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 28 January 2015
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Salt Publishing
- Format Paperback
- Pages 80
- Language English
- URL http://saltpublishing.com/products/london-bridge-9781844714902