The Returning Sky

by Peter Robinson

Peter Robinson's new collection, The Returning Sky, carefully sequences the poems written over the four years from the time he left Japan and returned to England, through the global financial crisis, and into our current austerity culture. Opening with a sequence inspired by an unexpected visit to the United States, The Returning Sky then explores experiences of repatriation with the vividness and freshness of a reverse culture shock. The book takes up the inextricably financial, cultural, and emotional themes that Robinson had first scouted in collections from the years before his long economic exile, while his evocatively inventive forms invite new readers to follow his traces with the same warmth and candour he shows to his returning ones.

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2012

About the author

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Peter Robinson is a British-born poet. He graduated from the University of York in 1974. In the 1970s he edited the poetry magazine Perfect Bound and helped organize several Cambridge International Poetry Festivals. He was awarded a doctorate in 1981 for a thesis on the poetry of Donald Davie, Roy Fisher and Charles Tomlinson.

Reviews

[Lula · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is such a difficult one to review- every time i was reading it, it felt like the most beautiful book i’d ever read and for no real reason in particular just gorgeous words. i would call peter a true wordsmith. but then with that came this weird unknown feeling whenever i would put the book down. a feeling of forget of what it was like. it took me so long to read because it felt like a chore to pick up, as if i needed to force my way through it like i do with unenjoyable books.
not sure why i had this aversion because it genuinely was so lovely.
most of the pages are dog eared now but there is a little part of me that’s relieved it’s over and i can’t explain why