{"product_id":"asylum-10","title":"Asylum","description":"\u003cp\u003eLike his two previous books, \u003ci\u003eAsylum\u003c\/i\u003e was written live on-site; in this case deep  within the caves, mines, quarries, geological and archaeological horizons of the  Mendip Hills in Somerset. The poems stage modes of exile in the darkness of  earth, enacting solidarity with those others who have made their journey into  the underworld – Dante, Orpheus, blinded Oedipus, Euripides. These are semi-dramatic voicings, staged across the thirty-mile theatre of the Mendip subterranean: each an act of recovery, of rescue. Traversing the broken, collapsed, eroded stones, looking for voices that express the damaged and the damned, \u003ci\u003eAsylum\u003c\/i\u003e pays homage to the darkness of the human cave: its memories and ancient histories, and to its more contemporary signals – internationally owned quarries, abandoned coal mines, decommissioned Cold War bunkers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs with \u003ci\u003eBee Journal\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHuman Work\u003c\/i\u003e, these poems take on the nature of the experience recorded. Written blind, as it were, the diction here becomes mineral,  deeply tactile – hard and granular, alert to sound in its own blackness.  Descending underground with the poet is to enter a theatre of heightened senses, and these extraordinary poems feel both unearthed and unearthly.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":32104343535699,"sku":"","price":16.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781911214021.jpg?v=1779245139","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/asylum-10","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}