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Room of Thieves Angela Cleland

Room of Thieves By Angela Cleland

Room of Thieves by Angela Cleland


$10.00
Condition - Like New
5 in stock

Summary

A six toed cat skeleton, a lesson in boxing technique and a poem in the shape of a phallus. Cleland's second collection deftly treads the line between the serious and the comic. An accessible, magic-infused offering from a poet with sharp eyes and a dark wit.

Room of Thieves Summary

Room of Thieves by Angela Cleland

A six toed cat skeleton, a lesson in boxing technique and a poem in the shape of a phallus. These are just some of the things you can expect from Cleland's second collection, Room of Thieves.

Through its myriad settings, from the bemonstered waters of Loch Morar to the London commuter belt to the Amazon, this book is concerned with the relationship between our internal and external landscapes and explores how our attempts to control the world around us betray our desires and prejudices.

Blank verse, free verse, prose poetry and concrete sit happily alongside each other in this surprising and varied collection. The poems in their different forms are united by Cleland's sinister sense of magic, which breathes life into the people and creatures that inhabit them: they are haunted by the ghosts of faeries and deerhounds, the spectre of an unreachable internet and the patchwork past of Machu Picchu. The result is work that deftly treads the line between the serious and the comic, characterised by compelling imagery, fresh conceits and strong narrative voices.

This is an accessible, enjoyable collection from a poet with sharp eyes and a dark wit.

Room of Thieves Reviews

There is a delicious sumptuousness to Angela Clelands poetry. Words slot into their allotted spaces with satisfying clunks that continue to resound long after you put down this debut collection.

-- Judy Darley * essentialwriters.com *

Perhaps the best pieces here are longer ones a week-length sequence of London morning vignettes; a song-like performance piece about a man sinking emotionally under his own guilt which makes fine use of repetitions; the final poem, which imagines the youthful Shelley setting off fire balloons carrying copies of the Declaration of Rights, is a rare example of a poem in a historical voice working with freshness. This is a varied, interesting first collection from a younger poet.

-- Roddy Lumsden * Books from Scotland *

Angela Clelands first full collection is quite a tour de force. Cleland has a taste for the surreal, the quirky, the sinister, and she explores her subjects with humour and a deliciously fresh approach to form, taking risks that pay off. Clelands material encompasses every kind of human and other relationship she is fascinated by personality and by the inner world of her characters. The ways in which she shocks and disturbs the reader are both authentic and enticing, from the spooky sense of isolation in Wool and air and Your art to the bizarre imaginative longing of Peeling. The middle section of the collection showcases the poets experiments with form, including shape poetry I enjoyed the inventiveness of Fig 1 and The Rain Gauge. This collection is a really good read.

-- Clare Best * The Frogmore Papers *

Angela Clelands first collection rings true; poignant, quirky and knowing. These assured poems deserve to be heard.

-- Jane Weir

This was a richly rewarding quarter including no fewer than three outstanding publications from new-kid-on-the-block, Templar Poetry Press, run from Derbyshire by Alex McMillen. Of these, particularly notable was Angela Cleland's powerful title sequence in Waiting to Burn.

* Poetry Book Society Bulletin *

Her poems are skilful, witty and inventive, and her oblique approach pierces the heart of life.

-- Moniza Alvi

About Angela Cleland

Angela Cleland was born in Inverness in 1977 and grew up in Dingwall by the Cromarty Firth. She studied English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow and in 2003 completed a MA Masters in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, London. In 2006 she won the Templar Poetry Pamphlet and Collection Competition and published her pamphlet Waiting to Burn and her full collection And in Here the Menagerie as a result. Room of Thieves is her second collection.

Table of Contents

  • Brinacory
  • Blaeberries!
  • Elasaid
  • In the Middle of Loch Morar, Late July
  • A Big One
  • Tall Thistle Syndrome
  • The Second Fall of the Eagle Stone
  • The Commission
  • Barn Owl
  • Two Young Bucks
  • Abduction
  • Frozen Points
  • Trackside Semi
  • The Suburbs
  • Waiting for Connection
  • JAB
  • Cross
  • Hook
  • Sparring
  • Tythe Barn, Bradford-upon-Avon
  • Helen of Sparta
  • Buttons
  • Room of Thieves
  • Three Routes to Immortality
  • Foreign Body
  • What Remains
  • The Extraction Socket
  • Down
  • Dusk
  • Percussion
  • and Mrs Smith
  • We are Granny's Pearls
  • Sandie Dances
  • At the Science Museum
  • Emma's Porch
  • My Hands are Slippery
  • Good Day in Peru
  • The Harpy Eagle, a Theft
  • Night Walk
  • Two Dogs ...
  • PROHIBIDO EL PASO
  • Cochineal
  • Machu Picchu
  • Yana Phuyu
  • ATOK

Additional information

GOR013874864
9781907773518
1907773517
Room of Thieves by Angela Cleland
Used - Like New
Hardback
Salt Publishing
2013-08-15
80
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
The book has been read, but looks new. The book cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket is included if applicable. No missing or damaged pages, no tears, possible very minimal creasing, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins

Customer Reviews - Room of Thieves