Landfill
Landfill
John Wedgwood Clarke
Paperback (with cover flaps)
If the history of civilisation has been a journey away from our rubbish, John Wedgwood Clarke’s Landfill seeks to reverse that route, taking us behind the chain-link fence of the dump to witness the sublime mess we’ve made of things.
He marvels at the ‘confessions of a people’, at archaeology in the making, with poems about old cookers, fridges, fluorescent tubes and heaps of plastic bottles. Out of their usual locations, these objects become strangely eloquent about the shape of our lives.
Acknowledging that the beautiful view and decluttered house depend on the dump, Clarke responds here with neither cynicism nor sentiment; instead offering a fresh perspective on a vital yet hidden part of our world.
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Imprint: Valley Press
Published: September 2017
ISBN: 9781908853844
Catalogue no: VP0101
Page count: 88
Trim size: 198 x 129 mm
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Praise for Landfill:
‘Clarke has found rich pickings in the landfill, with line after line worth lingering over for its subtleties. His high-definition observation is informed by an ecologist’s eye, its scientific knowledge lightly worn.’
— Philip Gross
About the author
John Wedgwood Clarke was born in St Ives, Cornwall in 1969. He trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, before going on to study literature and completing a D.Phil. in Modernist poetry at the University of York. He set up the Beverley Literature and Bridlington Poetry Festivals, and ran them for ten years, before leaving to pursue a full-time career in writing and editing, as well as teaching Creative Writing at the University of Hull, and more recently at the University of Exeter.
His publications with Valley Press include the pamphlets Sea Swim (2012) and In Between (2014), as well as the full-length collections Ghost Pot (2013) and Landfill (2017).