Description
Caroline Bird at first appears to be a traditional story-teller. But the stories she tells are suspended, charged with metaphor, and built upon foundations strangely familiar: fairy tale, fantasy and the sweet-bitter world of romance. The further one reads in her haunted tales, the more remarkable becomes the variety of forms, metres and rhythms she uses, and the clearer their appropriateness. Things are not ever as they seem, and the poems bring us closer to how the world ‘really’ is for this talented teenager. They work metaphorically through our expectations and prejudices, which she rearranges and reanimates (‘with a step/in your dance, a forecast for lightning’), or those that relate to the world of childhood (‘I came to see if you were okay’) where language itself has never quite got a grip. In the poems of Caroline Bird gender politics are starkly redefined, as are the languages with which generations communicate and fail to agree.
Caroline appeared at our 2020 festival at the Saturday Headline event and delivered an excellent workshop. For our 2022 festival, she is our Competition Judge and will host our Competition Winners event at the festival.
Price £9.99
ISBN: 9781857545906
Date: 28th February 2002
Format: Paperback
Extent: 80 pp
POETRY
