The Whole Island
The Whole Island explores the poet's relationship with the Isle of Man, in poems about family and folklore, history and politics, nature and wildlife. The island is navigated as a body, the body as an island.
Readers may learn things about the Isle of Man, but Maddrell more frequently uses his cherished Isle as an allegory for the nature of his own queerness, and the queerness of nature and environmental threat. Liberally scattered with Manx Gaelic and dialect, The Whole Island is unapologetically Manx but welcomes its readers with open arms into its complex, conflicted world.
Praise for The Whole Island
“The Whole Island addresses Maddrell's passionate and sometimes conflicted relationship with the island of their birth, their 'heart's place' told sideways and through story. Imbued with physicality, it is an emotional and startlingly honest journey back from exile, from feelings of abandonment, alienation and shame to those of love, longing, hope and excitement.
For Maddrell, there is always the sense of discovery, 'on the edge of everywhere, there is always something new'. Something new is often born out of something old. He takes such discoveries for himself, often using them as external symbols of an inner conflict.
Maddrell's language in The Whole Island is rich, detailed and imaginative, notable for the use of Manx Gaelic words and phrases, and borrowings from other poets, including the great Manx poet of the nineteenth century, TE Brown, to whom this book is, in many ways, a personal response.”
– Annie Kissack, Fifth Manx Bard
About the Author
Simon Maddrell is a born Manx man, thriving with HIV. Brought up in Bolton, Lancashire, he recently moved to Brighton and Hove after twenty years in London. His publications include Throatbone (UnCollected Press, 2020) and Queerfella (Rialto, 2021).
Vital Statistics
Imprint: Valley Press
Edition: First (July 2023)
Paperback ISBN: 9781915606297
Catalogue number: VP0220
Page count: 36
Trim size: 229x152mm
