Nowhere’s Far as its title suggests is both close to the heart, immediately approachable and inhabitable, but also right out there in the world of the imagination where all sorts of strange things meet. Whether laugh-out-loud funny or staring straight into the abyss, Phil Bowen’s highly distinctive poems are written with great originality, rhythm and nerve. Here are poems that pass `the spelling test’ – casting a spell that in turn creates a distinct world whose landscape readers can inhabit for the poems’ duration. His voice is decidedly contemporary and commendably sparing of the first person singular and the merely observational.
His poetry is both celebratory and colourful yet at times menacingly dark in its uncompromising vision. He has always had a strong sense of the absurd and the surreal, and the book is rich in macabre comedy, romantic slants and theatrical cameos – including affectionate portraits of some of his favourite practitioners ranging from Philip Larkin and Leonard Cohen to Max Wall and Ken Dodd – but as the later poems reveal he combines a heightened sense of lyric with a deft touch and use of rhyme and form, his poetry constantly underpinned by the unwavering belief that poetry is increasingly important as a pagan stronghold in which the language lives.
- ISBN10 1844715078
- ISBN13 9781844715077
- Publish Date 28 April 2009
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 8 January 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Salt Publishing
- Format Paperback
- Pages 160
- Language English
- URL http://saltpublishing.com/products/nowhere-s-far-9781844715077