Bear

By Chrissy Williams

The lively ‘bears’ in this playful and poignant collection will surprise you on every page. They are poems of love and death, life, loss and grief. The ephemera of popular culture is used to confront mortality, and you’ll be transported from the British Library to the Alps to the International Space Station, along with a vibrant cast of Vikings, videogames and Angela Lansbury. From the ludicrous to the domestic, these profound, wry and very real bears affirm that hope may be found even in our darkest moments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Jul 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781780373331

Book preview

CHRISSY WILLIAMS

BEAR

The lively ‘bears’ in this playful and poignant collection will surprise you on every page. They are poems of love and death, life, loss and grief. The ephemera of popular culture is used to confront mortality, and you’ll be transported from the British Library to the Alps to the International Space Station, along with a vibrant cast of Vikings, videogames and Angela Lansbury. From the ludicrous to the domestic, these profound, wry and very real bears affirm that hope may be found even in our darkest moments.

Chrissy Williams has published several pamphlets, one of which was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. Bear is her first book-length collection.

‘Chrissy Williams is my new favourite poet. These poems are as close and intimate as a bear breathing down your neck, about to take you in its arms or tear you limb from limb; as strange and unexpected as a bear playing the piano and as beautiful and inexplicable as love.’ – Luke Kennard

‘In spite of its almost absurdist character and apparent playfulness, Chrissy Williams’s Bear is a collection of poems that deal with all that is most serious in human life. From start to finish, these wonderfully various, entertaining and original poems speak the language of compassion, intimacy and faith.’ – Annie Freud

‘A pleasure in pluralism.’ – Richard O’Brien, Poetry London

‘Fasten your seatbelts. Something powerful is taking off here.’ – Christie Williamson, Sphinx

Cover artwork: Tom Humberstone (www.tomhumberstone.com)

CHRISSY WILLIAMS

BEAR

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Bear of the Artist

LOVE

Gone

Robot Unicorn Attack

JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION in the Spring

The Lost

Green Lake

Bliss

Sonnet for Zookeeper

On Getting Boney M’s Cover of ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ by Harry Belafonte Stuck in My Head

Sheep

from Groundhog Day

The art of editing

Poem in Which I Respond to Notes in the Margins of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Selections

Bedroom Filled With Foam

Wet Days Are the Worst

Over Dave’s Trousers

Jam