Includes the Guardian Poem of the Week ‘Darling, Would You Please Pick Up Those Books’.
In her second collection, Kathryn Maris brings her spirit of sly wit and artful parody to the words, themes and rhythms of the Bible. Beginning with a kaleidoscopic vision of the sins and sinners of the modern city, the poems explore the worlds of domestic discord, gossip and celebrity, anxiety and suicide – subverting scripture in a variety of ways, from burlesque mockery to poignant reflection, all with an entirely contemporary edge.
“There’s a delicious sense of both open-mindedness and devilry in Maris’s work... You could say she’s like Sylvia Plath with added chutzpah. But, really, Kathryn Maris is like no-one but herself.”
Carol Rumens
“This has a Dorothy Parker air, metropolitan and crowded, intimate with other lives whose own limits may never be known.”
George Szirtes, Poetry London
Kathryn Maris was born in Long Island, New York. Her first collection, The Book of Jobs, was published by Four Way Books in 2006. Her poem ‘Darling, Would You Please Pick Up Those Books’ was a Guardian Poem of the Week, and a runner-up in the 2008 Troubadour Poetry Competition, judged by Jo Shapcott and Stephen Knight. She now lives in London.