Shoulder Tap

Maurice Riordan

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780571367139
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

SHORTLISTED FOR THE POETRY PIGOTT PRIZE IN ASSOCIATION WITH LISTOWEL WRITERS' WEEK

Throughout these poems, with their roaming sense of first-person, the speakers' minds are cavernous and echoic, primal and sophisticated, observant and raw, in and out of control of themselves. The effect is unpredictable and thrilling, at once a dark art and an illumination of unease and loss and wishfulness. The collection features disquieting songs of a mutable self alongside poignant elegies, interior journeys and subtle (and not so subtle) ripostes to the legacy of Trumpism - while elsewhere encounters with ghostly feet and tongues of fire consort with riffs on Baudelaire, Rilke and Laforgue. These poems twinkle with mischief and humour, making for a pungent and haunting read. Riordan - a poet whose strong, rippling influence is felt by all in his wake - affirms his reputation at the forefront of contemporary poetry.

Table of contents

• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Epigraph
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• The Changeling
• During the Recent Thunder & Lightning
• A Carcass
• The Narcissist
• The Seven Songs of Myself
• Hamartia
• The Surly Boy
• The Prefect Boy
• Topology
• Monopoly
• Madame Bovary
• #PoorMe
• The Damned Soul
• Shoulder Tap
• The Prodigal
• Feet
• Yeomen
• The Moment
• The Jailbird
• Lumps
• The Third Wish
• With (a) Little Help from Rainer Maria Rilke
• Bugs Bunny to the Rescue
• Slatterns
• Sainthood
• Terrace
• New from Next Door
• The Billboard
• Mould
• Gravel
• Song before My Birth
• The Beach Poem
• I Was Woken by the Leader of the Free World
• Questions for the Oracle
• Notes
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright