Demolition man
The Centre's poet in residence for 2007/8, Neil Rollinson, has published his fourth collection of poetry, Demolition (Jonathan Cape).
A long central poem about the death of his father influences much of the book, which also features poems about the deaths of other fathers including the poets' Neruda, Borges and Vallejo. Other poems explore the loss of childhood and innocence, but - although its themes and interests are concerned with the shadow of loss - Neil hopes that "...the book is an optimistic and hopeful look at the human condition, suffused with candour and a sense of humour."
The book explores a more formal, structural approach than his previous collections, and includes several sonnets. Neil describes its title poem as a 'found' poem, having been carefully lifted from an interview with a demolitions expert in the magazine New Scientist.
Reviewing the book in The Sunday Times (December 9, 2007), Alan Brownjohn described Demolition as "...surely his best book..."
"...The fears and ironies are altogether gentler, and his gift for quirky variations on common experience is given free rein in what he tells us about cutting vegetables in the poems Cauliflower and Cucumber," Brownjohn continued, "while Waiting for the Man (at a Kyoto pedestrian crossing) catches to perfection the sensation of finding happiness in sheer oddity."