Tramp in Flames

by Paul Farley

Following the exceptional acclaim for his first two books, Farley might have been forgiven for resting on his laurels with his âdifficult thirdâ â but Tramp in Flames instead finds him driving his formal ambition and remarkable imagination harder than ever. A book of considerable emotional daring and sometimes Wordsworthian sweep, Tramp in Flames is the work of a meticulous archivist of our cultural memory, and sets the palimpsest of the present hour on a light-box. It also shows Farley rapidly becoming one of the definitive English voices of the age. `Resonant without being flashy... lines that will stick with you for a really, really long time` Mark Haddon `Funny, observant, brilliantly musical... streetwise, erudite, elusive, but very accessible` Ruth Padel, Financial Times `Farley is one of our most vital and engaging voices. Even a title can twist at the familiar, commanding our attention. He has the knack of both establishing and undermining the securities of memory purely through turn of phrase` W. N. Herbvert, Scotland on Sunday Poetry Book Society Recommendation

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Paul Farley is the author of four collections of poetry and has received the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Whitbread Poetry Award and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Marshall A. Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Paul Farley through his collaborations with Micheal Symmons Roberts. Roberts is one of, if not my favourite poet, and I really enjoyed their collaborative effort Deaths of the Poets. So I figured I’d give Farley’s poetry a gander.

While his style and content isn’t as similar to Roberts’ as I’d have hoped, I did still find a few poems that I really enjoyed. Though I wouldn’t say I disliked his style or content overall, I’m not sure I liked the majority of it enough to seek out another of his collections unless it was recommended to me.

My favourites from this collection were:

Liverpool disappears for a billionth of a second
Pantoum of the emergency
Duel
Johnny Thunders said
Requiem for a friend
The scarecrow wears a wire