Pirate Music

Miriam Gamble

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780371863
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Miriam Gamble's second collection takes its title from unlicensed broadcasting. Here, the marginalia of prophecy coexist with and counter voices of authority, voices that are at once eerie and depressingly recognisable. An artist steals back paintings, leaving the money in their wake, and scores a cameo on Crimewatch; a figure from medieval memento mori art finds himself up against a consumer deaf to the language of symbolism; animal anti-heroes spit in the face of well-meaning, or not so well-meaning, human interest. Throughout, biological impulses are sparked then thwarted by entropic systems - creatures and humans alike find themselves steered rather than steering, engulfed by repeating patterns which nullify the efforts of the individual life. Pirate Music questions the narratives, including those forged by art itself, by which we shape the world to suit our own devices and steel ourselves against 'what we cannot name or see'. Praise for The Squirrels Are Dead: 'These poems' understand the relation between form and violence, understand that craft and control can be acts of brute force too - against the other, even against the self. The Squirrels Are Dead is a collection of extraordinary formal versatility and skill' - Fran Brearton, Edinburgh Review. 'Experimental and wide-ranging, her work is by turns lyrical, surreal and quirkily humorous. Her debut collection shows that she is already a writer of considerable achievement and one who looks set to promise more in the future' - David Cooke, The North. 'What separates her from the thousands of other poets with a gift for sharp description, is the complexity and tautness of her arguments' Gamble's intelligence is what makes these poems a pleasure to read' - John Clegg.

CONTENTS

1. Title Page
2. Dedication
3. Epigraph
4. Acknowledgements
6. Always Autumn
7. Darwinian
8. Alturas
9. Normalisation
10. Hotel Rooms
11. Bower Bird
12. Personification
13. The Mare Spikes a Glassy Loch
14. Reflexology
15. Wipe
16. Films about Ghosts
17. In the Fall
18. Dressing Fleas
19. Mi Territorio
20. Blue Nude
21. Meditations on a Dead Pigeon
22. An Emblem Thereof
23. The Locked Room Mystery
24. Cuba
25. Misrecognition
26. Maighdean Mara
27. Précis
28. Pirate Music
29. It
30. Piero di Co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Description
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Always Autumn
• Darwinian
• Alturas
• Normalisation
• Hotel Rooms
• Bower Bird
• Personification
• The Mare Spikes a Glassy Loch
• Reflexology
• Wipe
• Films about Ghosts
• In the Fall
• Dressing Fleas
• Mi Territorio
• Blue Nude
• Meditations on a Dead Pigeon
• An Emblem Thereof
• The Locked Room Mystery
• Cuba
• Misrecognition
• Maighdean Mara
• Précis
• Pirate Music
• It
• Piero di Cosimo: The Forest Fire
• Vigilante
• Home
• The World Is Laced with Smells
• Webs
• Ghosts
• Dido’s Lament
• After Keith Douglas
• Andrew Dreams of Catherine Wheels
• Childhood
• Jiggy’s Yard
• Macken’s Van
• Mugs
• Albrecht Dürer: Lansquenet and Death, 1510
• The Animal Room
• Perfect
• An Encounter
• The Brutality of Koala Song
• Dressage
• Bodies
• In the Blue Solitudes
• Night
• The Others
• Found
• The Horses
• Separation Creek
• Notes
• About the Author
• Copyright