Murder Bear

by W.N. Herbert

Within the pages of Murder Bear, W.N. Herbert conjures a darkly comic phantasmagoria, setting loose his eponymous protagonist -- a lethal, ursine, omniseasonal anti-Santa -- to lay waste to the populace and its pop culture icons, his literary forebears and language itself. Through woodland, suburb and city streets, and in the final Zeichentrickbärendämmerung (Twilight of the Cartoon Bears), Murder Bear roams, unstoppable. Herbert has been widely praised for his range and virtuosity, and his considerable comedic skill. These poems stake out strange new terrain, displaying great wit and dexterity, chutzpah and charm.

Genres: Poetry

36 pages, Paperback

Published December 5, 2013

About the author

W.N. Herbert FRSL (b. 1961) is a Scottish poet. He writes in both English and Scots. He and Richard Price founded the poetry magazine Gairfish. He currently teaches at Newcastle University.

Herbert was educated at Grove Academy and then studied Brasenose College, Oxford, becoming a Doctor of Philosophy in 1992 after completing a thesis on the work of Hugh MacDiarmid.

In 1994, he was Writer-in-Residence for Morayshire and one of 20 poets chosen by a panel of judges as the New Generation in a promotion organised by the Poetry Society. He was one of the writers involved in the Informationist poetry movement that emerged in Scotland in the 1990s.

In September 2013, Herbert was appointed as Dundee's first makar.

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly weird pamphlet. Funny and disturbing and unputdownable.

[Ciaran]

I liked the bit where murder bear kills Harry Potter