Carcanet Press - An Aviary of Small Birds

Description
Author
Awards
Reviews

An Aviary of Small Birds is both elegy to a stillborn son and testament to the redemptive qualities of poetry as a transformative art. Here, birth paradoxically becomes the moment of death when, after long labour, the baby's heart gives out. However, just a grief is not linear, so too the book follows an emotional rather than a chronological arc. Ultimately, it is a closely felt connection with nature that allows the author to transcend the experience and honour the spirit of her son.

Karen McCarthy Woolf was born in London to an English mother and a Jamaican father. She is the recipient of the Kate Betts Memorial Prize and an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholarship from Royal Holloway, where she is a PhD candidate. Described in The Poetry Review as ‘extraordinarily moving and ... read more

Awards won by Karen McCarthy Woolf Winner, 2020 The Laurel Prize for Ecopoetry, Second Place (Seasonal Disturbances ) Commended, 2017 Poetry Book Society Recommendation. (Seasonal Disturbances ) Short-listed, 2015 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize
(An Aviary of Small Birds) Short-listed, 2015 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection
(An Aviary of Small Birds)

'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak'
Maggie Gee, The Observer - The New Review, 29.11.2015. '[McCarthy Woolf has] a powerful command of form and rhythm.'
Alan Brownjohn, Poetry Review
Praise for Karen McCarthy Woolf   'This is a book which goes beyond invention to intervention, offering hybrid forms through which to apprehend the world. Consider its 'couplings', which lineate and striate 'pre-existing prose' with response lines to 'create a new lyric narrative' (as the notes elucidate). This is true to how our minds reverberate with information, with the assimilated otherness of alien texts. It does not rest at passive record or academic critique of such an internal state. It makes music, love, and rapture'
Vahni Capildeo in The Compass Magazine
'Witty, provocative and lyrically accomplished.'
Poetry London
  'For all its internationalism, McCarthy Woolf's poetry engages with the local and the personal. Reading Seasonal Disturbances is like picking up a London A-Z and finding it's a new map of the world.'
Karen's poem 'Outside' from Seasonal Disturbances was Guardian Poem of the Week, 25th December 2017
'Seasonal Disturbances is an unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement that should give the selectors of major poetry prize lists cold sweats for neglecting it. It will break you, in a good way. Truth hurts.'
The Poetry School Books of the Year 2017
'A fine antidote to Brexit delusions and certainties: London-watching and form-reshaping, unpredictable and casually intense.'
Carol Rumens, Best Poetry Books of 2017, The Guardian
'A masterclass in structure.'
Magma Poetry
'Seasonal Disturbances might be strange, but it's also a brilliant selection of poems [...] It's a collection that teaches you something about human beings as well as yourself.'
The Poetry School   'Formally ambitious...big-idea poems made up of bite-size insights and ironies that establish political anger and ecological anxiety.'
The Sunday Times

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An Aviary of Small Birds Karen McCarthy Woolf 10% off eBook (EPUB) 10% off Paperback Categories: 21st Century, BAME, British, Women Imprint: OxfordPoets Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (88 pages) (Pub. Oct 2014) 9781906188146 £9.95 £8.96 eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE! (Pub. Jan 2014) 9781906188252 £9.95 £8.96 Digital access available through Exact Editions To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions. Description Author Awards Reviews *An Aviary of Small Birds* is both elegy to a stillborn son and testament to the redemptive qualities of poetry as a transformative art. Here, birth paradoxically becomes the moment of death when, after long labour, the baby's heart gives out. However, just a grief is not linear, so too the book follows an emotional rather than a chronological arc. Ultimately, it is a closely felt connection with nature that allows the author to transcend the experience and honour the spirit of her son. Karen McCarthy Woolf was born in London to an English mother and a Jamaican father. She is the recipient of the Kate Betts Memorial Prize and an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholarship from Royal Holloway, where she is a PhD candidate. Described in The Poetry Review as ‘extraordinarily moving and ... read more Awards won by Karen McCarthy Woolf Winner, 2020 The Laurel Prize for Ecopoetry, Second Place (Seasonal Disturbances ) Commended, 2017 Poetry Book Society Recommendation. (Seasonal Disturbances ) Short-listed, 2015 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize (An Aviary of Small Birds) Short-listed, 2015 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (An Aviary of Small Birds) 'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak' Maggie Gee, The Observer - The New Review, 29.11.2015. '[McCarthy Woolf has] a powerful command of form and rhythm.' Alan Brownjohn, Poetry Review Praise for Karen McCarthy Woolf 'This is a book which goes beyond invention to intervention, offering hybrid forms through which to apprehend the world. Consider its 'couplings', which lineate and striate 'pre-existing prose' with response lines to 'create a new lyric narrative' (as the notes elucidate). This is true to how our minds reverberate with information, with the assimilated otherness of alien texts. It does not rest at passive record or academic critique of such an internal state. It makes music, love, and rapture' Vahni Capildeo in The Compass Magazine 'Witty, provocative and lyrically accomplished.' Poetry London 'For all its internationalism, McCarthy Woolf's poetry engages with the local and the personal. Reading Seasonal Disturbances is like picking up a London A-Z and finding it's a new map of the world.' *Karen's poem 'Outside' from Seasonal Disturbances* was Guardian Poem of the Week, 25th December 2017 'Seasonal Disturbances is an unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement that should give the selectors of major poetry prize lists cold sweats for neglecting it. It will break you, in a good way. Truth hurts.' The Poetry School Books of the Year 2017** 'A fine antidote to Brexit delusions and certainties: London-watching and form-reshaping, unpredictable and casually intense.' Carol Rumens, Best Poetry Books of 2017, The Guardian 'A masterclass in structure.' Magma Poetry 'Seasonal Disturbances might be strange, but it's also a brilliant selection of poems [...] It's a collection that teaches you something about human beings as well as yourself.' The Poetry School 'Formally ambitious...big-idea poems made up of bite-size insights and ironies that establish political anger and ecological anxiety.' The Sunday Times You might also be interested in: Her Birth Rebecca Goss For Anatole's Tomb Stephane Mallarme, Translated by Patrick McGuinness Exactly My Own Length Olivia McCannon	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more
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