Book description
An Ordinary Dog is a carnival of clashing forms and tones, all
deployed with a cool wit and technical precision. They bear sceptical
witness to - what? To the affecting ordinariness of human needs, to
the vanity of human wishes. Woods writes about desire: sacred and
profane, serene and frantic, refined and grubby - often betrayed by
cussedness, always complicated by external events.
Looking back to times of crisis when history is endured and
re-invented, An Ordinary Dog explores where myth degenerates into
faith and reason falters. The mood veers between equanimity and
desperation; the focus between detachment and intimate involvement.
'The poet with the sharpest technique for social verse in Britain
today.' - Peter Porter
Gregory Woods was born in Egypt in 1953
and grew up in Ghana. He began his teaching career at the University
of Salerno and now works at Nottingham Trent University, where he was
appointed Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies in 1998. His was the
first such appointment in the United Kingdom. He was awarded a PhD by
the University of East Anglia in 1983, and a DLitt in 2006. In
addition to his poetry collections, all published by Carcanet Press,
he is also the author of a number of critical books, including
Articulate Flesh: Male Homo-eroticism and Modern Poetry (1987) and A
History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition (1998), both from Yale
University Press. He has been a member of the board of directors of
East Midlands Arts and is a Fellow of the English Association.
