A Year in the New Life

Underwood, Jack. 2021. A Year in the New Life. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 9780571367252 [Book]

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Abstract or Description

POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION
'Jack Underwood has developed an utterly clear lyric that rebukes moral obviousness, drives against false certainty. It's as refreshing as it is instructive . . . Underwood has become one of my favorite poets.' Kaveh Akbar

Jack Underwood's poetry debut, Happiness (2015), was celebrated for its unconventional and daring tone: 'conversational, arresting . . . weird, singular' (Guardian). Such qualities are on accomplished display in this anticipated new collection, as the poems mature and move on to a wide range of preoccupations, including imminent societal collapse and public unrest; the limits, myths and complexities of masculinity and fatherhood; and uncanny, often amusing scenarios, such as serving drinks to a gathering of fifteen babies or group kissing in Empathy Class.

Throughout, incongruous and domestic subjects realign in skewed lyrics and thought experiments, intimately expressed in 'a new language / of the familiar' ('The Landing'). All is presented with a generosity and tenderness that makes the poet so unmistakable - and indispensable for the strange times in which we live.

'I was done in by these poems, but I really lived as I read them; each one holding life and time in a balletics of stress and flow.' Holly Pester

Item Type:

Book

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

English and Comparative Literature

Date:

5 August 2021

Item ID:

36809

Date Deposited:

14 Jun 2024 13:15

Last Modified:

14 Jun 2024 13:15

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/36809

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