Samarkand

by Kate Clanchy

A collection of poetry, Samarkand is a portraiture of displaced people, lovers, and snowmen.

Few first collections in recent years have made the impact of Kate Clanchy's award-winning Slattern, which gained her a reputation as a poet of great immediacy and wit. In this new book her range is extended dramatically. Samarkand is both a darker and a more sunlit collection than its predecessor. Inside the reader will find surreal elegy; love poems of every humour; grim episodes from colonial history and meditations on home and distance as well as some practical advice on having sex with angels—all delivered with the effortless musicality of phrase and formal panache that are fast becoming Clanchy's trademarks.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Kate Clanchy was educated in Edinburgh and Oxford University. She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Buckinghamshire where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer. Her poetry and seven radio plays have been broadcast by BBC Radio. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper; her work appeared in The Scotsman, the New Statesman and Poetry Review. She also writes for radio and broadcasts on the World Service and BBC Radio 3 and 4.

She is a Creative Writing Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and teaches Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation. She is currently one of the writers-in-residence at the charity First Story. Her poetry has been included in A Book of Scottish Verse (2002) and The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry (2006)

Reviews

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this poetry collection before I decided to borrow it from my University library, but I am so pleased that it caught my attention. Beautiful imagery abounds here, and Clanchy is definitely a poet whom I will seek out in future. Lots of history is at play, and many of her turns of phrase are very memorable indeed.

'The Invisible Man':
'It was the bandages that book got right.
We're none of us quite here, alone -
the way we pat our cheeks at night
to check our flesh still clothes the bone.'

[Merima Maja Brkic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is poetry in novel form and storytelling at its best. I could not put it down.