Mancunia
Michael Symmons Roberts
Mancunia
Michael Symmons Roberts
‘A collection that constantly defies expectation… superb, substantial and intricately varied.’ Kate Kellaway, ObserverShortlisted for the 2017 T. S. Eliot PrizePBS Autumn Recommendation
Shortlisted for the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize Longlisted for the 2019 Portico Prize PBS Autumn Recommendation
Mancunia is both a real and an unreal city. In part, it is rooted in Manchester, but it is an imagined city too, a fallen utopia viewed from formal tracks, as from the train in the background of De Chirico’s paintings. In these poems we encounter a Victorian diorama, a bar where a merchant mariner has a story he must tell, a chimeric creature - Miss Molasses - emerging from the old docks. There are poems in honour of Mancunia’s bureaucrats- the Master of the Lighting of Small Objects, the Superintendent of Public Spectacles, the Co-ordinator of Misreadings. Metaphysical and lyrical, the poems in Michael Symmons Roberts’ seventh collection are concerned with why and how we ascribe value, where it resides and how it survives. Mancunia is - like More’s Utopia - both a no-place and an attempt at the good-place. It is occupied, liberated, abandoned and rebuilt. Capacious, disturbing and shape-shifting, these are poems for our changing times.
This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in approx 2 weeks
Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.
Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.