Ukulele Music and Perduta Gente: Perduta Gente

by Peter Reading

This double volume of poems is the first U.S. publication of one of the most important and exciting contemporary English poets. "Ukulele Music" is a narrative of violence that ranges from urban London to Patagonia, and his philosophically serious treatment of victim and witness, culture and event, is unparalleled among contemporary writers. "Perduta Gente" is an intense depiction of the pathos and ironies of urban frenzy, squalor, money, and power, complete with a variety of visual textures—newspaper clippings, handwritten notebook entries, typed memos, and a scientific table.

110 pages, Hardcover

First published August 3, 1994

About the author

Peter Reading (27 July 1946 – 17 November 2011) was an English poet and the author of 26 collections of poetry. He is known for his choice of ugly subject matter, and use of classical metres. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry describes his verse as "strongly anti-romantic, disenchanted and usually satirical". Interviewed by Robert Potts, he described his work as a combination of "painstaking care" and "misanthropy".