In Circles is the follow-up publication to the author’s widely-acclaimed parody novel, The Last Smoker on Earth and the End of Literature [Friesen Press, Vancouver, 2021]. The poems were composed in 40 countries around the world. The collection is occasionally profound, sometimes mischievous, but essentially humorous. The author makes a thematic distinction between poems that are obviously whimsical (Nosepicker, Mortal); the misery of despondency (Loner and a bar-room mirror); a ‘recitation-tribute’ to his father growing-up in the West of Ireland (Primrose Hill) and the few such as Paroxysm of Fear that are deeply intense, personal and penetrating. He felt it necessary to include these calamitous images in the vital reality and vulnerability of our times - in a sobriety of our concomitant need for diversion. In Circles is as much a series of standalone vignettes as it is a book of poems. It makes free use of wordplay, euphemism and sound while experimenting with the illustrative (eyecatching) effects of using icons to coax a vivid curiosity in an enlivening of the genre.
All great writers in history were smokers but now smoking had been banned globally effective New Year’s Day 2009. The Act of Cessation was launched during the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations with dire implications because of the rampant rumor of Obama being a closet-smoker. This book is a parody about a brilliant writer who lives two lives – one in the media industry interfacing with celebrities, a number of whom make cameo appearances. The other is his secret life as the last smoker on earth. Facilitated by nicotine stimulation, the protagonist is on a mission to return literature to society as a closet-smoker, writing the great American novel in his surreptitious sojourns to the underground. If apprehended by the anti-tobacco police he will be incarcerated in a place called the Midnight Express and never heard from again.
All great writers in history were smokers but now smoking had been banned globally effective New Year’s Day 2009. The Act of Cessation was launched during the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations with dire implications because of the rampant rumor of Obama being a closet-smoker. This book is a parody about a brilliant writer who lives two lives – one in the media industry interfacing with celebrities, a number of whom make cameo appearances. The other is his secret life as the last smoker on earth. Facilitated by nicotine stimulation, the protagonist is on a mission to return literature to society as a closet-smoker, writing the great American novel in his surreptitious sojourns to the underground. If apprehended by the anti-tobacco police he will be incarcerated in a place called the Midnight Express and never heard from again.
In Circles is the follow-up publication to the author’s widely-acclaimed parody novel, The Last Smoker on Earth and the End of Literature [Friesen Press, Vancouver, 2021]. The poems were composed in 40 countries around the world. The collection is occasionally profound, sometimes mischievous, but essentially humorous. The author makes a thematic distinction between poems that are obviously whimsical (Nosepicker, Mortal); the misery of despondency (Loner and a bar-room mirror); a ‘recitation-tribute’ to his father growing-up in the West of Ireland (Primrose Hill) and the few such as Paroxysm of Fear that are deeply intense, personal and penetrating. He felt it necessary to include these calamitous images in the vital reality and vulnerability of our times - in a sobriety of our concomitant need for diversion. In Circles is as much a series of standalone vignettes as it is a book of poems. It makes free use of wordplay, euphemism and sound while experimenting with the illustrative (eyecatching) effects of using icons to coax a vivid curiosity in an enlivening of the genre.
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