Carcanet Press - Before We Go Any Further

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In Tristram Fane Saunders' first collection, readers encounter a poet whose ingenious forms dazzle, even while exploring darker themes. Drawing on delicious, unconventional rhymes and rhythms, Before We Go Any Further conjures a contemporary London as it maps the ways we try to communicate with each other across real and invented distances.

Sphinxes and sea-creatures, sleepwalkers and surrealists visit poems about art and friendship, poems that are 'trying to tilt toward love', but 'can't help tugging/at the invisibly thin/line between true and honest’. They discover wry humour in that struggle.

Tristram Fane Saunders lives in London and works as a journalist. He is the author of five pamphlets and one poetry collection, Before We Go Any Further (Carcanet, 2023), and is the editor of Edna St Vincent Millay: Poems and Satires (Carcanet, 2021). His poems have appeared in The TLS, The ... read more

'Before We Go Any Further is full of song and mirth, a welcome celebration of life and hope and newness, but delivered with dry wit and ironic formality: an excellent debut collection.'
Kevin Gardner, Wild Court
'erudite and witty, playful and discontented, pessimistic but full of cheer. What sets Saunders apart from many contemporary poets (certainly debutants) is his joy and skill with rhythm and rhyme. His poems are driven by their musicality, though thanks to his careful phrasemaking, they never go off the road... Wide-ranging and gentle with its intellect, this is a charming and inventive first book.'
Stephen Sexton, Irish Times
'Far from being static and uninvolved, the voice of Fane Saunders's brilliant debut is more often than not in a state of disarray... Before We Go Any Further is a book about turbulence and disorientation, and ingeniously engineered exits from these conditions into something both sustaining and enduring.'
David Wheatley, TLS
'It's difficult to sum up briefly what this collection is 'about' but this poem comes close: surviving, getting through, all the ways of coping. What good's a page against the whole damn world? - literally, not much, but metaphorically the words on the page, then the words on the next page, will - like this collection - help. When the words, lines, poems are as good as this they help a lot. The collection in one word? Exhilarating.'
D.A. Prince, The Friday Poem
'The poems in Before We Go Any Further are rhythmically curious and refreshingly sensitive. But as a collection that demands to be read and received as a whole, it also succeeds in the rigour of its design... Executed with such intensity of spirit, these are astute, witty and memorable poems for our time.'
Kate Simpson, The Telegraph
'A debut packed full of surprises, from thoughtful mental health odes that elude closure, to poems surfing the lingos of the infotainment industries, to hilarious psychogeographical excursions through the tarnished oasis of Crystal Palace Park... the volume as a whole charts the emergence of a new voice which is at once warm and edgy.'
Philip Terry, The Guardian
"These poems cut quite a dash! Tristram Fane Saunders is the kind of verse stylist who seems able, whether the lines resound with euphonious music, or clatter with barbed juxtapositions, to fully inhabit the breadth of the English language and its many ways of saying. Before We Go Any Further is a breath of clean, fresh, air."
Kayo Chingonyi
'Before We Go Any Further would be a striking debut on the strength of its formal confidence and original phrasemaking alone; but what separates it from the competition is its shamelessly bold return to a poetry of the imagination, to poetry's old tradition of making it new. These poems see it as their business to make connections, shed light and extend their empathies into the world; that they do so with such originality and flair makes for one of the most purely enjoyable and invigorating first collections I've read in a long time.'
Don Paterson 'Tristram Fane Saunders is a joyfully idiosyncratic new voice in contemporary poetry; cultured, wry, formally adept, and adroitly musical. But what I love most is the deep compassion beneath the play. Many of these poems seek remedy for their suffering beloveds, only to be openly frustrated by their own limitations. These moments of radical kindness and vulnerability completely floored me, and make this a collection to cherish.'
Fiona Benson

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Before We Go Any Further Tristram Fane Saunders 10% off all versions Categories: 21st Century, British, First Collections Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (84 pages) (Pub. Jun 2023) 9781800173255 £12.99 £11.69 eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE! (Pub. Jun 2023) 9781800173262 £10.39 £9.35 Digital access available through Exact Editions To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions. Description Author Reviews In Tristram Fane Saunders' first collection, readers encounter a poet whose ingenious forms dazzle, even while exploring darker themes. Drawing on delicious, unconventional rhymes and rhythms, Before We Go Any Further conjures a contemporary London as it maps the ways we try to communicate with each other across real and invented distances. Sphinxes and sea-creatures, sleepwalkers and surrealists visit poems about art and friendship, poems that are 'trying to tilt toward love', but 'can't help tugging/at the invisibly thin/line between true and honest’. They discover wry humour in that struggle. Tristram Fane Saunders lives in London and works as a journalist. He is the author of five pamphlets and one poetry collection, Before We Go Any Further (Carcanet, 2023), and is the editor of Edna St Vincent Millay: Poems and Satires (Carcanet, 2021). His poems have appeared in The TLS, The ... read more 'Before We Go Any Further is full of song and mirth, a welcome celebration of life and hope and newness, but delivered with dry wit and ironic formality: an excellent debut collection.' Kevin Gardner, Wild Court 'erudite and witty, playful and discontented, pessimistic but full of cheer. What sets Saunders apart from many contemporary poets (certainly debutants) is his joy and skill with rhythm and rhyme. His poems are driven by their musicality, though thanks to his careful phrasemaking, they never go off the road... Wide-ranging and gentle with its intellect, this is a charming and inventive first book.' Stephen Sexton, Irish Times 'Far from being static and uninvolved, the voice of Fane Saunders's brilliant debut is more often than not in a state of disarray... Before We Go Any Further is a book about turbulence and disorientation, and ingeniously engineered exits from these conditions into something both sustaining and enduring.' David Wheatley, TLS 'It's difficult to sum up briefly what this collection is 'about' but this poem comes close: surviving, getting through, all the ways of coping. What good's a page against the whole damn world? - literally, not much, but metaphorically the words on the page, then the words on the next page, will - like this collection - help. When the words, lines, poems are as good as this they help a lot. The collection in one word? Exhilarating.' D.A. Prince, The Friday Poem 'The poems in Before We Go Any Further are rhythmically curious and refreshingly sensitive. But as a collection that demands to be read and received as a whole, it also succeeds in the rigour of its design... Executed with such intensity of spirit, these are astute, witty and memorable poems for our time.' Kate Simpson, The Telegraph 'A debut packed full of surprises, from thoughtful mental health odes that elude closure, to poems surfing the lingos of the infotainment industries, to hilarious psychogeographical excursions through the tarnished oasis of Crystal Palace Park... the volume as a whole charts the emergence of a new voice which is at once warm and edgy.' Philip Terry, The Guardian "These poems cut quite a dash! Tristram Fane Saunders is the kind of verse stylist who seems able, whether the lines resound with euphonious music, or clatter with barbed juxtapositions, to fully inhabit the breadth of the English language and its many ways of saying. Before We Go Any Further is a breath of clean, fresh, air." Kayo Chingonyi 'Before We Go Any Further would be a striking debut on the strength of its formal confidence and original phrasemaking alone; but what separates it from the competition is its shamelessly bold return to a poetry of the imagination, to poetry's old tradition of making it new. These poems see it as their business to make connections, shed light and extend their empathies into the world; that they do so with such originality and flair makes for one of the most purely enjoyable and invigorating first collections I've read in a long time.' Don Paterson 'Tristram Fane Saunders is a joyfully idiosyncratic new voice in contemporary poetry; cultured, wry, formally adept, and adroitly musical. But what I love most is the deep compassion beneath the play. Many of these poems seek remedy for their suffering beloveds, only to be openly frustrated by their own limitations. These moments of radical kindness and vulnerability completely floored me, and make this a collection to cherish.' Fiona Benson	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 The Strongbox: Sasha Dugdale read more Not a Moment Too Soon: Frank Kuppner read more Coco Island: Christine Roseeta Walker read more that which appears: Thomas A Clark read more Come Here to This Gate: Rory Waterman read more Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more
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