The Marble Fly

by Jamie McKendrick

The Marble Fly, is Jamie McKendrick's third collection of poems following The Kiosk on the Brink and his widely acclaimed collection The Sirocco Room. The title refers to an image on a Pompeian wall-relief and fuses McKendrick's interests in the classical world and natural history. These forty poems, each pertaining to a particular history--whether natural or unnatural, personal or impersonal--focus on modes of transport and their relation to the natural world. As eloquent as they are intricate, the poems work on both a literal and metaphorical level, and cover such topics as Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, the construction of canals, the first airplane, and spiders sent up into space in the Skylab.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1997