Book description
The Patient' suffers a brain haemorrhage. Small World grows out of
the days before and after. It has the authority of lived experience,
beginning with what Price dubs existential family poems': honed,
lyrical, they explore the dynamics of modern life. Price's poems
observe and reflect, revisiting and deepening the themes of his
earlier books. These poems prepare us for the moment when the poet's
lover, the Patient', is afflicted. At times angry and despairing, the
poems evoke hospital conditions and social attitudes to the ill, but
the main focus is on the intricate reality of living day to day,
trying to bring memory to bear on the future: Price's produces a
multi-layered collection that builds a rich portrait of love under
almost intolerable pressure.
Richard Price was born in 1966 and grew up in Scotland. He trained as
a journalist at Napier College, Edinburgh, before studying English at
the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. The youngest of the
Informationist group of poets, he was a founder of the magazines
associated with them, Gairfish and Southfields. He is also the
co-founder of Vennel Press, the imprint which brought many of the
earlier Informationist collections to a wider audience. He is Head of
Modern British Collections at the British Library, London.
