Ник Лэйрд — новинки

Laird's debut collection, To a Fault (2005), signalled the arrival of a significant new talent, 'doing more, in its range and ambition,' wrote Deryn Rees-Jones in the Independent, 'than any first collection I can think of in at least the last ten years.' On Purpose confirms the promise of that first book and shows the author hitting new and yet more athletic strides.

Blending tones of assurance and delicacy, of confidence and vulnerability, On Purpose is a collection of poems that takes care and consideration in examining the often brutal arena of human relations, concluding with a mercurial and affecting sequence about a marriage, which takes, as its point of departure, that most influential of military treatise, The Art of War.

Danny Williams didn't mean to be a lawyer, but somehow he is -- and for up to eighteen hours a day. He's well paid, home owning, and twenty-seven but is also overworked, lonely, and frequently stoned. The plan was to leave the troubles of a small town in Northern Ireland for the big city in England, but one evening an old school friend, Geordie, bursts into Danny's shiny new life. On the run from a Loyalist militia, Geordie brings everything Danny thought he had left behind and dumps it on his doorstep.

With infectious wit and energy to burn, Utterly Monkey is a searing, fiercely funny, and ultimately redemptive novel about surviving an office job, outwitting the bad guys, and, hopefully, getting the girl.

In this impressive debut, Nick Laird explores the sharp edge of relationships, from the intimacy of lovers to the brutality of political violence. Journeying between his native Ulster and his adopted London, he balances ideas of home and flight, the need for belonging and the need to remain outside. Formally deft, rhetorically fresh, these poems never shy from difficult choices, exploring cruelty and vengeance wherever they may be found: in love, in work and against political backdrops. But these are brave, resolute writings that resist despair at all times, affirming instead the need to rebuild and to right oneself, to dust down and carry on.