Carcanet Press - Gregory Woods

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Gregory Woods is the author of Articulate Flesh: Male Homo-eroticism and Modern Poetry (1987), A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998) and Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World (2016), all from Yale University Press. He began his teaching career at the University of Salerno in 1980. In 1998 he became the first Professor of Gay & Lesbian Studies in the UK, at Nottingham Trent University, where he is still Professor Emeritus.

'Woods's conjurations are elliptical, smokily atmospheric; cinematic if one takes Resnais, Robbe-Grillet and perhaps Costa-Gavras as one's touchstone... His confidence in obscuring the sequence's chronology is to be applauded. He trusts the reader not only to recognise the interconnections and echoes and reverberations, but to appreciate that the isolation of minutiae - the Edward Hopper-like capture of single but intensely weighted moments - is vastly more important than the linear presentation of a series of scenes or episodes... a cityscape and mindscape unique in contemporary British poetry.'

Neil Fulwood, The High Window

'It is a feat to describe a world so brimming over with dissatisfaction and disappointment with such precision. But of course, Gregory Woods, a poet with an engineer's eye for angles and plans, the economical lyricist and master of understatement, pulls it off as a coherent narrative whole from a collection of fractures, without a wasted word, nor sentiment.'

Matt Nunn, Everybody's Reviewing

'There is such authority in Woods' poems: the lyrical resignation of his rhythms, the music of experience in his voice, as in his repeated lines of longing: 'It was as if all sounds/and smells were smells and sounds/of you.' No word is out of place: a beautiful atmosphere is created from the mysterious streets, colonnades and rooms of each poem. There's restrained suffering in these pages, tempered by eroticism, wry wisdom, sly humour at his own and the world's foibles, alongside rich and varied technical skills... His investigation of solitude and examination of time include an impressive expertise in capturing the moment... Gregory Woods is an underestimated master at work, and Records of an Incitement to Silence, his sixth collection, shows him at the pinnacle of his craft.'

Robert Hamberger

Awards won by Gregory Woods Long-listed, 2022 The Polari Book Prize
(Records of an Incitement to Silence)

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Gregory Woods Books by this author: Records of an Incitement to Silence An Ordinary Dog Quidnunc The District Commissioner's Dreams May I Say Nothing We Have the Melon About Reviews Awards Gregory Woods is the author of Articulate Flesh: Male Homo-eroticism and Modern Poetry (1987), A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998) and Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World (2016), all from Yale University Press. He began his teaching career at the University of Salerno in 1980. In 1998 he became the first Professor of Gay & Lesbian Studies in the UK, at Nottingham Trent University, where he is still Professor Emeritus. 'Woods's conjurations are elliptical, smokily atmospheric; cinematic if one takes Resnais, Robbe-Grillet and perhaps Costa-Gavras as one's touchstone... His confidence in obscuring the sequence's chronology is to be applauded. He trusts the reader not only to recognise the interconnections and echoes and reverberations, but to appreciate that the isolation of minutiae - the Edward Hopper-like capture of single but intensely weighted moments - is vastly more important than the linear presentation of a series of scenes or episodes... a cityscape and mindscape unique in contemporary British poetry.' Neil Fulwood, The High Window 'It is a feat to describe a world so brimming over with dissatisfaction and disappointment with such precision. But of course, Gregory Woods, a poet with an engineer's eye for angles and plans, the economical lyricist and master of understatement, pulls it off as a coherent narrative whole from a collection of fractures, without a wasted word, nor sentiment.' Matt Nunn, Everybody's Reviewing 'There is such authority in Woods' poems: the lyrical resignation of his rhythms, the music of experience in his voice, as in his repeated lines of longing: 'It was as if all sounds/and smells were smells and sounds/of you.' No word is out of place: a beautiful atmosphere is created from the mysterious streets, colonnades and rooms of each poem. There's restrained suffering in these pages, tempered by eroticism, wry wisdom, sly humour at his own and the world's foibles, alongside rich and varied technical skills... His investigation of solitude and examination of time include an impressive expertise in capturing the moment... Gregory Woods is an underestimated master at work, and Records of an Incitement to Silence, his sixth collection, shows him at the pinnacle of his craft.' Robert Hamberger Awards won by Gregory Woods Long-listed, 2022 The Polari Book Prize (Records of an Incitement to Silence)	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog Why Are You Shouting?: James Womack read more Sidetracks: Bei Dao, translated by Jeffrey Yang read more Polkadot Wounds: Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo read more Ambush at Still Lake: Caroline Bird read more On a New Blue Poets Plaque: E.J. Scovell by Michael Schmidt read more Mary O'Malley: The Shark Nursery read more
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