Shadow Play
James Norcliffe
Norcliffe professes not to be a confessional poet; nevertheless he freely acknowledges that places and people served as prompts for the poems. New Zealand based, Norcliffe is well-travelled and his poems have international resonance. Placing Shadow Play with one other poetry collection as a finalist for the annual international Proverse Prize in 2011, the judging panel (reviewing entries with no knowledge of the writers) found an expert hand behind a wide variety of well-wrought poems on a range of topics, pleasingly interwoven with literary allusions.
"Though the 'ordinary world' most of these poems inhabit is rich with the familiar—ATMs, case managers, vindaloo—what James Norcliffe finds there is far from typical. And when he turns his considerable imagination up a notch, setting a giraffe on the Russian steppe, say, or exploring the largest statue of a strawberry in the world, the results have the surprise and gleam of the truly extraordinary. Shadow Play is a treasure chest of fresh, insightful work."—Don Bogen, poet and editor of the Cincinnati Review, USA.
"James Norcliffe is part bar wag, part trapeze artist, and every bit the literary raconteur. He wields his imagination like a spot welder, spraying out glowing trails of hot sparks. And yet so much in these pages happens in slo-mo, in fractured memory. There are poems for cartographers and window washers, personae poems for Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland, and sadistic Empress Dowager Cixi, love poems for books, ATMs, and vindaloo. But his great poem for the Icthyosaurus -- "not one centimetre / of human history in the / kilometres of its eyes" -- exposes the slinky sinister undertow at work. Suicide, heart attacks, suicide bombers, and auto da fe suck us in. Norcliffe pokes and prods the reader like a forensic tech and in the end his poems leave spatter patterns."—Richard Peabody, poet, novelist, and editor of Gargoyle Magazine, USA.
Duration - 57m.
Author - James Norcliffe.
Narrator - James Norcliffe.
Published Date - Sunday, 22 January 2023.
Copyright - © 2012 Proverse Hong Kong ©.
Location:
United States
Networks:
James Norcliffe
Proverse Publication Prize
Proverse Hong Kong
English Audiobooks
Findaway Audiobooks
Description:
Norcliffe professes not to be a confessional poet; nevertheless he freely acknowledges that places and people served as prompts for the poems. New Zealand based, Norcliffe is well-travelled and his poems have international resonance. Placing Shadow Play with one other poetry collection as a finalist for the annual international Proverse Prize in 2011, the judging panel (reviewing entries with no knowledge of the writers) found an expert hand behind a wide variety of well-wrought poems on a range of topics, pleasingly interwoven with literary allusions. "Though the 'ordinary world' most of these poems inhabit is rich with the familiar—ATMs, case managers, vindaloo—what James Norcliffe finds there is far from typical. And when he turns his considerable imagination up a notch, setting a giraffe on the Russian steppe, say, or exploring the largest statue of a strawberry in the world, the results have the surprise and gleam of the truly extraordinary. Shadow Play is a treasure chest of fresh, insightful work."—Don Bogen, poet and editor of the Cincinnati Review, USA. "James Norcliffe is part bar wag, part trapeze artist, and every bit the literary raconteur. He wields his imagination like a spot welder, spraying out glowing trails of hot sparks. And yet so much in these pages happens in slo-mo, in fractured memory. There are poems for cartographers and window washers, personae poems for Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland, and sadistic Empress Dowager Cixi, love poems for books, ATMs, and vindaloo. But his great poem for the Icthyosaurus -- "not one centimetre / of human history in the / kilometres of its eyes" -- exposes the slinky sinister undertow at work. Suicide, heart attacks, suicide bombers, and auto da fe suck us in. Norcliffe pokes and prods the reader like a forensic tech and in the end his poems leave spatter patterns."—Richard Peabody, poet, novelist, and editor of Gargoyle Magazine, USA. Duration - 57m. Author - James Norcliffe. Narrator - James Norcliffe. Published Date - Sunday, 22 January 2023. Copyright - © 2012 Proverse Hong Kong ©.
Language:
English
Opening Credits
Duration:00:00:13
About the book
Duration:00:01:17
About the poet
Duration:00:02:05
Preface by Bernadette Hall
Duration:00:07:46
Introduction by James Norcliffe
Duration:00:03:09
A PINK DOLPHIN MADE OF GLASS notice
Duration:00:00:06
1. A Pink Dolphin Made of Glass
Duration:00:01:11
2. Hamlet nurses his beer
Duration:00:01:02
3. Tenniel draws Alice
Duration:00:01:16
4. ATM
Duration:00:00:50
5. The Knowledge of the Case Manager
Duration:00:00:54
6. Vindaloo
Duration:00:01:05
7. trapeze
Duration:00:00:39
8. a pork pie from Montpelier Retreat
Duration:00:01:10
LOST IN NINEVEH notice
Duration:00:00:06
9. Lost in Nineveh
Duration:00:00:56
10. Missing the Whirling Dervishes
Duration:00:01:43
11. The Empress Cixi among the lotuses
Duration:00:00:46
12. safe passage
Duration:00:00:51
13. after the Foxhead
Duration:00:01:05
14. at Fossil Gorge
Duration:00:01:05
15. caldera
Duration:00:00:55
16. Ichthyosaurus
Duration:00:01:04
17. along the groynes
Duration:00:00:44
18. cervena
Duration:00:00:41
19. when the heart attack came
Duration:00:00:33
20. shadow play
Duration:00:01:16
21. endgame
Duration:00:00:43
SLEEPING THE SLEEP OF THE DEAD notice
Duration:00:00:07
22. Sleeping the sleep of the dead
Duration:00:00:48
23. kissing Lord Kitchener
Duration:00:00:38
24. my alien vegetable
Duration:00:01:16
25. nor'west arch
Duration:00:00:56
26. the frog in the orchid
Duration:00:00:26
27. tomentum
Duration:00:00:53
28. the fat publican
Duration:00:00:33
29. Lygon Street
Duration:00:00:48
30. the man who burnt his hat
Duration:00:00:47
31. the creature
Duration:00:01:14
32. the mapmaker's mistake
Duration:00:01:30
33. yet another poem about a giraffe
Duration:00:00:49
THE COLOUR OF TENDERNESS notice
Duration:00:00:06
34. the colour of tenderness
Duration:00:00:52
35. Scaffolding
Duration:00:01:00
36. Errol Flynn at Battery Point
Duration:00:00:42
37. By the lake
Duration:00:00:52
38. Forgiveness at Ramadan's End
Duration:00:01:13
39. the bookman in love
Duration:00:00:40
40. the bookman after love
Duration:00:00:50
41. house
Duration:00:01:20
42. orthography
Duration:00:00:48
43. Towards the mountain
Duration:00:01:17
44. I have sent a package to summer
Duration:00:01:01
Ending Credits
Duration:00:00:29