The Curiosities

Christopher Reid

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780571322978
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

The Curiosities is the eleventh book of poems from this most inventive and celebrated of British poets. Clustering around the letter 'C', the seventy-some poems that comprise this collection celebrate a lexicon of lived experience through a single letter of the alphabet. Here we find tales of cufflinks and costume, cougars and cochineal, catapults and cavalry, even canoodlings in canoes. With a characteristic sleight of hand, Christopher Reid shifts deftly between seriousness and play, elegy and anarchy in this sometimes-zany, sometimes-haunting compendium of bright-eyed verses. Here and there the story-telling roams and sweeps: here are tales 'for' friends and loved ones, there are tales 'after' the great poets of history. But whoever and whatever the mode of address, these poems are frequently underpinned by a unifying humanity. The Curiosities is a temptatious read, full of wisdom and surprise, humour and lament, and is a poignant and convincing reminder that in a world where 'nobody's allowed to live forever', life is for celebrating, and grasping by the collar.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• The Clowns
• The Cat
• The Chocolate
• The Cry
• The Coin
• The Calabash
• The Cloud
• The Children
• The Colt
• The Chill
• The Chisel
• The Café
• The Cherry
• The Catapult
• The Critics
• The Collarbone
• The Cougar
• The Clearing
• The Costume
• The Courtesan
• The Canes
• The Coward
• The Couch
• The Celibate
• The Crowbar
• The Calm
• The Cacophony
• The Corbel
• The Caryatids
• The Cochineal
• The Call
• The Conceit
• The Cyborgs
• The Cowhand
• The Courier
• The Courtesies
• The Cottage
• The Caterwaul
• The Canoodling
• The Connoisseur
• The Corncrake
• The Clarinet
• The Concept
• The Confusions
• The Craving
• The Chop
• The Crossroads
• The Competition
• The Change
• The Clew
• The Caress
• The Clatter
• The Cage
• The Capsule
• The Conversation
• The Crowd
• The Cufflinks
• The Chaos
• The Cheat
• The Cupboard
• The Climax
• The Cyclists
• The Card
• The Crime
• The Curse
• The Cavalry
• The Cab
• The Copy
• The Circumstances
• The Confessions
• The Crotchet
• The Crow
• The Centaur
• The Credits
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright