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Sunday 3 April 2011

Life on the Edge: Edgelands, a Review

Holden Street, North Adams, Massachusetts,
July 13, 1973 by Stephen Shore, from jmcolberg.com
When I was given Edgelands, a new collaborative publication by the English poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, to review a couple of weeks ago, I received it's accompanying summation with not a little scepticism. I was assured by the guys at the Poetry Book Society however, that although it was basically a book essays about sewage works and scrapyards and trailer parks and all the places that are grim and degraded that we deliberately choose to avoid, it was actually very interesting and well written. And, as usual, they were right. And again, I was confounded and converted. I'm now giving up pessimism for Lent.

All I'll say right now is "read this book". If you don't have a copy, or can't afford one, you can come round and borrow mine. And if you're still not swayed, maybe the review below will tip you over the edge...