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Perfect Catch

Ian McMillan

Cover Picture of Perfect Catch
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (264 pages)
(Pub. Oct 2000)
9781857544961
£8.95 £8.05
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  • July is the lady in blue Skirt and shoes
    July is the man in blue Trousers and hats
    sky is blue was All those things
    across the ancient valley the church bell rings


    from 'A Drench for St Swithun's Day'

               
    Perfect Catch is a bundle of poems, plays, and collaborations between Ian McMillan and various musicians, theatre groups, radio producers and ordinary and extraordinary people. Poetry is a community art for this writer, not a craft pursued in a lonely room. Like any popular laureate, McMillan knows that every occasion requires a different kind of language, every medium makes different demands. A script can be a poem; it can contain poems. It can be the occasion for poems.

    McMillan's poetry always provides snapshots and voiceshots of the modern world (a world rather broader in this volume than ever before, because of the poet's travels). The poems are edged with an artful guile which can gauge the emotional and psychic demands of modern life at the same time as making his readers and audience weep with laughter. He has read in schools, trains, football grounds, radio studios and even stranger locations all over the world.
    Ian McMillan was born in Barnsley in 1956. He published his first Carcanet book of poems, The Changing Problem, in 1980. Now It Can Be Told appeared in 1983, Dad, the Donkey's On Fire in 1994. Selected Poems (Poetry Book Society Recommendation) has gone through several printings, and I Found ... read more
    Praise for Ian McMillan
    '€˜The John Peel of poetry.'
    Alec Finlay
    'An inspiring figure, an encouraging & democratic spirit, a strong & popular poet and one of the funniest people in Britain.'
    Poetry News
    '€˜World-class - one of today'€™s greatest poetry performers.'
    Carol Ann Duffy
    '€˜A force of nature.'
    Guardian
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