From retro computer games and Hollywood blockbusters to the West Indian cricketer Brian Lara - no field of contemporary culture is safe from Simon Barraclough’s sophisticated and inclusive vision.
Bonjour Tetris presents seventeen new poems originally commissioned for radio programmes, anthologies and the opening of a concert hall. Both serious and playful, quirky and formal, these poems prove there’s nothing ordinary about writing to order.
The first Penned in the Margins mini-book, Bonjour Tetris is published in a boxed, limited edition with an exclusive poem-postcard inside. Each copy is signed and numbered by the author.
“Is this the best title for anything, ever?”
Londonist.com
“Aside from the fact that this may be the best ever name for a published volume of poetry, the physical object is itself a thing of marvellous beauty. [...] The thought of toting an iPad with me to Saturday morning brunch to read the weekend FT makes me feel like a robot, not a chilled-out, eggs-florentine eating human being. Besides, when [publishers like] Penned in the Margins are taking care to produce such marvellous pamphlets and then packaging them so that you feel like you’re opening a birthday present instead of a slim volume of poetry, why would you prefer screen to stamped, limited edition, sand-coloured boxes.”
Crystal Bennes
Previous review quotes:
“Simon Barraclough offers up a poetry of contrasts: he is a relaxed formalist, a hands-off sensualist, a subtle polemicist and a humorist you can take seriously. All these strands are brought together by a deft hand under the watch of a filmic eye.”
Roddy Lumsden
“poems with the unmistakeable stamp of a vision asserting itself through vocabulary.”
Clive James
“Barraclough may see himself as travelling lightly through the world, but he catches the sense of what it’s like to live in the modern city more astutely and more often than most other poets.”
Laurie Smith, Magma
Simon Barraclough is originally from Yorkshire but has lived in London since 1997. He won the poetry section of the London Writers' Prize in 2000 and his 2008 debut Los Alamos Mon Amour was shortlisted for Best First Collection in the Forward Prizes. His work has been published in the likes of Poetry Review, The Guardian, The FT and Magma and he is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and 4.
Bonjour Tetris presents seventeen new poems originally commissioned for radio programmes, anthologies and the opening of a concert hall. Both serious and playful, quirky and formal, these poems prove there’s nothing ordinary about writing to order.
The first Penned in the Margins mini-book, Bonjour Tetris is published in a boxed, limited edition with an exclusive poem-postcard inside. Each copy is signed and numbered by the author.
“Is this the best title for anything, ever?”
Londonist.com
“Aside from the fact that this may be the best ever name for a published volume of poetry, the physical object is itself a thing of marvellous beauty. [...] The thought of toting an iPad with me to Saturday morning brunch to read the weekend FT makes me feel like a robot, not a chilled-out, eggs-florentine eating human being. Besides, when [publishers like] Penned in the Margins are taking care to produce such marvellous pamphlets and then packaging them so that you feel like you’re opening a birthday present instead of a slim volume of poetry, why would you prefer screen to stamped, limited edition, sand-coloured boxes.”
Crystal Bennes
Previous review quotes:
“Simon Barraclough offers up a poetry of contrasts: he is a relaxed formalist, a hands-off sensualist, a subtle polemicist and a humorist you can take seriously. All these strands are brought together by a deft hand under the watch of a filmic eye.”
Roddy Lumsden
“poems with the unmistakeable stamp of a vision asserting itself through vocabulary.”
Clive James
“Barraclough may see himself as travelling lightly through the world, but he catches the sense of what it’s like to live in the modern city more astutely and more often than most other poets.”
Laurie Smith, Magma
Simon Barraclough is originally from Yorkshire but has lived in London since 1997. He won the poetry section of the London Writers' Prize in 2000 and his 2008 debut Los Alamos Mon Amour was shortlisted for Best First Collection in the Forward Prizes. His work has been published in the likes of Poetry Review, The Guardian, The FT and Magma and he is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and 4.