Salt Modern Poets Series

The second work in the "Oxford Poets" series by Tobias Hill, this collection has a narrative feel, demonstrated in poems which depend on his nocturnal, somewhat ferret-like, eye and an emotional stance somewhere between distance and intimacy. Essentially we are trailing through our own mean streets, following the tracks of rivers and canals, listening to the sounds of the animals in their cages, particularly from London Zoo, and picking up impressions as if they were bits of interesting rubbish that signify something important.

Midnight in the City of Clocks

by Tobias Hill

Published 19 September 1996

This lively first collection from a young, much-travelled writer, falls into two parts. `Transit' includes poems of abroad, especially Japan, where Tobias Hill lived for two years. `Back to the City' is about London, from hangover to Underground; Hiroshima; and the `City of Clocks', a fusion of cities and ages. They are poems crammed with a young man's curiosity and eye for detail, and show his great ability for story-telling. Tobias Hill lives in London, and besides writing (his short stories are to be published by Faber) he reviews and edits several new magazines. This book is intended for poetry readers, especially younger ones (schools/colleges).

Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow

by Tobias Hill

Published 15 July 2006

In this latest collection of poems, Hill invokes people and place, mythologizing and demythologizing city lives as they are led. From poignant vignettes and celebrations to urban-pastoral and elegy, these poems extend Hill's romance with London's psychic and surreal fabric. Selected as a Next Generation poet, Hill continues to delight us with sensuous observation and imaginative embrace.

"Hill's special territory, in poetry and prose, is the `urban-pastoral' ... his native North London is transformed, with many deftly dark touches, into an uneasy realm of the imagination. Hill clearly appreciated Simon Armitage's storytelling persona; he also drew upon observation of the natural world in ways associated with Ted Hughes. Much of his imagery is by turns delicately `Japanese', or reminiscent of the heyday of Craig Raine's `Martian' style. Hill has a romantic dimension in his work that is all his own. As a young man with an intense curiosity about the world, his work is full of sensual images, vignettes of city life - and romance ... these are poems of flirtation and desire."

- contemporarywriters.co.uk

"The closeup detail taken directly from nature, then skewed through 90 Degrees to give the reader something completely new, even unique ... with this third collection, Hill promises to be a real force in poetry, displaying an utterly contemporary understanding of how nature continues to work."

- Poetry Review

"There is a fin de siecle decadence about them ... not least in their brightly coloured diction, their luxuriant descriptiveness, their louche postures."

- Poetry Wales

"Superb conjurations of place."

- Adam Mars Jones

"Compassionate and intelligent ... so full of action and interest and that brings alive such an array of people and places, that it is difficult to believe they sprang from the pen of one writer."

- Rachel Cusk

Year of the Dog

by Tobias Hill

Published May 1995

Tobias Hill's first full-length collection, Year of the Dog, won an Eric Gregory award in 1995. Dominated by images and narratives from Hill's stay in Japan, as well as other travel poems, the book contains Hill's celebrated sequence `A Year in Japan', with its sweeping filmic narratives of the poets encounters in a distant and strange land. Hill's skills in depicting urban pastoral landscapes and human tableux are much in evidence. Now made available in a new edition, this hard to obtain work will delight fans and collectors.

"Hill's special territory, in poetry and prose, is the `urban-pastoral' . . . his native North London is transformed, with many deftly dark touches, into an uneasy realm of the imagination. Hill clearly appreciated Simon Armitage's storytelling persona; he also drew upon observation of the natural world in ways associated with Ted Hughes. Much of his imagery is by turns delicately `Japanese', or reminiscent of the heyday of Craig Raine's `Martian' style. Hill has a romantic dimension in his work that is all his own. As a young man with an intense curiosity about the world, his work is full of sensual images, vignettes of city life - and romance . . . these are poems of flirtation and desire."

--contemporarywriters.co.uk

"The closeup detail taken directly from nature, then skewed through 90* to give the reader something completely new, even unique . . .

with this third collection, Hill promises to be

a real force in poetry, displaying an utterly contemporary understanding of how nature continues to work."--Poetry Review