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1 " On one level, the poems after Verlaine in this new book are a selfish project. I wanted to try on a voice with which, despite sharing some stylistic and tonal sympathies, I seemed to have little in common. It served as a psychodramatic exercise, a walk in somebody else’s shoes. Writing each new poem while drawing on the raw material of Verlaine in translation has led me, in the always dramatised context of the individual poem, to think and say things I’d likely never have dreamed of otherwise. But just as importantly, I hope these poems paint a fresh portrait of Paul Verlaine, however partial and sketchy, that reveals him to be a more surprising, hard-thinking, and even revivifying poet than expected. Beyond his skilled conjuring of delicate and atmospheric allusiveness, at its best, his is also poetry of punchy musicality, philosophical edge, and candidness – both intellectual and emotional – which allows for genuine beauty, sensuality, and sadness. "
― Ben Wilkinson , Same Difference
2 " On one level, the poems after Verlaine in this collection are a selfish project. I wanted to try on avoice with which, despite sharing some stylistic and tonal sympathies, I seemed to have little in common. It served as a psychodramatic exercise, a walk in somebody else’s shoes. Writing each new poem while drawing on the raw material of Verlaine in translation has led me, in the always dramatised context of the individual poem, to think and say things I’d likely never have dreamed of otherwise. But just as importantly, I hope these poems paint a fresh portrait of Paul Verlaine, however partial and sketchy, that reveals him to be a more surprising, hard-thinking, and even revivifying poet than expected. Beyond his skilled conjuring of delicate and atmospheric allusiveness, at its best, his is also poetry of punchy musicality,philosophical edge, and candidness – both intellectual and emotional – which allows for genuine beauty, sensuality, and sadness. "
3 " Even the most apparently autobiographical poem cannot help but deploy a persona that, while gesturingtowards a flesh-and-bones speaker, remains, paradoxically, no more than a dramatised representation. The illusion of the presence of the poet within a poem is made possible by that poem’s conjuring of the illusion of the present moment. Poems may utilise language in such ways as to gesture towards an immediacy that, in turn, gives rise to the seeming presence of a very real speaker. "
― Ben Wilkinson , Don Paterson
4 " In an age where marketing’s role in matters aesthetic is ever-increasing, the individual voice can be an overvalued commodity, playing to a perceived appetite for poet-as-author. "
― Ben Wilkinson
