Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Sad Giraffe Caf ; is a collection of prose poems which together form a shifting progressive narrative. There are three recurring themes: an imaginary and sinister kingdom, a young wanderer named Alice, and a shape-shifting, time-travelling, first person narrator. The poems seem to be devoid of past or future, existing in an unstable, and at time apocalyptic present. They are peopled by strangers and lodged in an 'elsewhere' which is also somehow familiar. They have the feel of dreams masquerading as real events, or else of real events masquerading as dreams.
Richard Gwyn's collection treads an unerringly unsteady line along the borders between dream and vivid observation, between sensual and laconic, between prose and poetry. Animas and alter-egos, ghosts of novels and travelogues, of the archaic/archetypal and of the contemporary populate the 'restless geography' where these wry and curiously wise short fictions are at home.
Philip Gross
Synopsis
A second collection of prose poems from the author of the award-winning novel The Colour of the Dog Running Away which together form a shifting progressive narrative revolving round three recurring themes: an imaginary and sinister kingdom, a young wanderer named Alice, and a shape-shifting, time-travelling, first person narrator.