Mermaids Explained

by Christopher Reid, Charles Simic (Foreword)

Since 1976, Christopher Reid has been startling and delighting readers of poetry. His philosphic concerns are often expressed in small, domestic details, but, as with the Metaphysical poets he admires, the effect heightens his poetry's seriousness and impact. Reid finds significance in the marginal, the endangered, the apocryphal, and the absurd. His verse, which has earned him both the distinguished Hawthornden and Somerset Maugham Prizes, is subversive and highly intelligent.

The Pultizer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic provides a welcome introduction to one of England's most distinguished and original voices.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Christopher Reid, FRSL is a Hong Kong-born British poet, essayist, cartoonist, and writer. He has been nominated twice for the Whitbread Awards in 1996 and in 1997. A contemporary of Martin Amis, he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He is one of the exponents of Martian poetry which employs unusual metaphors to render everyday experiences and objects unfamiliar. He has worked as poetry editor at Faber and Faber and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull. In January 2010 he was awarded the 2009 Costa Book Award for A Scattering, written as a tribute to his late wife, the actress Lucinda Gane. The work won in the poetry category, and overall Best Book of the Year, becoming the first poet to take the overall prize since Seamus Heaney in 1999.

Reviews

[Helen]

Fascinating. An exploration of humanity, cynical at times, yet beautiful in it's simplicity and directness.

[Alan Reese]

Mermaids are not explained or much else of interest. Reid offers some clever and imaginative glimpses and images, but, like much of my own poems, his are intellectual fodder better served as wall insulation or packing material. I tend to agree with his wife that he is " a pompous old fart."