Short Poems

Short Poems – Cassandra Atherton’s second title with Gazebo Books’ Life Before Man imprint, following Leftovers (2020) – gathers twenty taut prose poems moving between the bedroom, the gallery and the departure lounge.

Atherton, an international authority on prose poetry and ekphrastic writing, turns scholarship into sensation: Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott and Bob Fosse’s choreography (by way of dancer Ann Reinking) sit alongside pointe shoes, umeboshi and champagne, a Tokyo clock tower, a Ferris wheel at Yomiuri Land, Tennessee Williams’ New Orleans and a suitcase of smuggled red beans. Many poems are frankly, unapologetically erotic – a car seat, a bath, a hotel room – rendered with the same formal precision Atherton brings to musical and dance notation, so that scansion, key signatures and pointe-shoe anatomy all become ways of talking about desire and its aftermath. Short, dense and built for rereading, the collection is a compact demonstration of what the prose poem can do in the hands of one of its foremost practitioners and theorists.

Praise for Cassandra Atherton’s Short Poems

‘Atherton’s short poems oscillate between meditative and fiery moments, examining body politics and shifting geographies, relationships. This vivid, gorgeous collection of short prose poems is an incisive and compelling engagement of the form and its potential to paint vivid moments in time and thought. Japan, Australia, France, Spain – journeys are sharp moments, guiding pithy ruminations on the speaker, their place, and poetry itself. Radiant musicality and stark imagery coexist in an unexpected and wonderful fashion; a fantastic short collection.’

— Siobhan Hodge