In the country of the skin

by Peter Redgrove

Hardcover. First Edition. Very good condition. From the collection of poet Gavin Ewart. Signed and dedicated by author to Ewart, dated March 1973. In unclipped dust jacket, with sunned spine. Paper wrap-around attached. Pages and text fine. RB

149 pages, Hardcover

First published March 22, 1973

About the author

Peter William Redgrove was a British poet, who also wrote prose, novels and plays with his second wife Penelope Shuttle.

Reviews

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the introduction to The Black Goddess and the Unseen Real, Peter Redgrove refers to this, his first novel, as a piece of prose poetry. Here begins his studies of the black goddess. Here also is a response to having undergone the perverse psychiatric practice of insulin shock therapy—an experience likened to dying and being reborn. Redgrove said the prose is meant to be experienced as in a light trance, a space somewhere between waking and dreaming. I did not always achieve such a state, but there were moments. In this space shiny word objects flash in a sea of prose charged with eroticism and dense with archetypal imagery. It is a sublime and difficult book.