Bonjour Tetris

From retro computer games and Hollywood blockbusters to the West Indian cricketer Brian Lara - no field of contemporary culture is safe from Simon Barraclough's sophisticated and inclusive vision. Bonjour Tetris presents seventeen new poems originally commissioned for radio programmes, anthologies and the opening of a concert hall. Both serious and playful, quirky and formal, these poems prove there's nothing ordinary about writing to order. The first Penned in the Margins mini-book, Bonjour Tetris is published in a boxed, limited edition with an exclusive poem-postcard inside. Each copy is signed and numbered by the author. "Is this the best title for anything, ever?" Londonist.com "Aside from the fact that this may be the best ever name for a published volume of poetry, the physical object is itself a thing of marvellous beauty. [...] The thought of toting an iPad with me to Saturday morning brunch to read the weekend FT makes me feel like a robot, not a chilled-out, eggs-florentine eating human being. Besides, when [publishers like] Penned in the Margins are taking care to produce such marvellous pamphlets and then packaging them so that you feel like you're opening a birthday present instead of a slim volume of poetry, why would you prefer screen to stamped, limited edition, sand-coloured boxes." Crystal Bennes Previous review quotes: "Simon Barraclough offers up a poetry of contrasts: he is a relaxed formalist, a hands-off sensualist, a subtle polemicist and a humorist you can take seriously. All these strands are brought together by a deft hand under the watch of a filmic eye." Roddy Lumsden "poems with the unmistakeable stamp of a vision asserting itself through vocabulary." Clive James "Barraclough may see himself as travelling lightly through the world, but he catches the sense of what it's like to live in the modern city more astutely and more often than most other poets." Laurie Smith, Magma Simon Barraclough is originally from Yorkshire but has lived in London since 1997. He won the poetry section of the London Writers' Prize in 2000 and his 2008 debut Los Alamos Mon Amour was shortlisted for Best First Collection in the Forward Prizes. His work has been published in the likes of Poetry Review, The Guardian, The FT and Magma and he is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and 4.

Table of Contents:
Incorrigibly Plural In Memoriam Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916-2010) Bounded in a Nutshell Jurassic Coast Flashbacks of a Fool Examination at Doom's Door Bad Quarto Kings Cross Sections Gomorrah is Another Day Brian Lara Calls Us to the Things of this World Cinema Purgatorio WY Bride of Pinbot Zabriskie Point A Villanelle for Jules et Jim Being a Woman You Will Cheats & Hints

About the Author :
Simon's debut collection, Los Alamos Mon Amour was published by Salt in 2008 and was a finalist for a Forward prize. Since then he has published Bonjour Tetris with Penned in the Margins and his second full collection from Salt, Neptune Blue, came out in 2011. In between publications, Simon enjoys developing live, multi-media events, the most recent being Psycho Poetica in 2010 and The Debris Field (with Isobel Dixon and Chris McCabe) in 2012. He has collaborated with the artist Carolina Melis on several short films and currently works as a tutor for The Poetry School.

Review :
Is this the best title for anything, ever? - Londonist Aside from the fact that this may be the best ever name for a published volume of poetry, the physical object is itself a thing of marvellous beauty. Besides, when Penned in the Margins are taking care to produce such marvellous pamphlets and then packaging them so that you feel like you're opening a birthday present instead of a slim volume of poetry, why would you prefer screen to stamped, limited edition, sand-coloured boxes. - Crystal Bennes Videogames, TV, film, radio and other media monsters are caught in his lens until fun shares the screen with intelligence, beauty, and a mischievous wit. - Sabotage