The Opposite of Cabbage: (Salt Modern Poets)

Throughout this collection, opposites collide – reality and delusion, political activism and apathy, friend and enemy, life and death. Messiahs parachute themselves to disused northern fairgrounds, a woman diets until practically invisible, trained apes teach a colony of drunks how to dance, a bingo night fuels familial despair and love, and an airborne cabbage blasts a cyclist into orbit. With precision of language and a colourful, anarchic spirit, Mackenzie’s poems focus on their subjects with humanity and hard-won compassion. They have a light touch, but are never trivial. They are for readers who trust that questions are rarely simple and answers never final. Ironic and humorous, complex and engaging, you can’t do without The Opposite of Cabbage.

Table of Contents:
Light Storms from a Dark Country Voices The Listeners White Noise Scottish Sonnet Ending in American Fallen Villages of the North Moving On Scotlands Nuclear Submarines Everyone Will Go Crazy The Loser While the Moonies are Taking Over Uruguay Berlusconi and the National Grid Shopping List Patenting The Bananas Scotland How New York You Are The Look Hot Shit Slimming Girl Playing Sudoku on the Seven-Fifteen Homes of the Future Exhibition In the Last Few Seconds Benediction Hospital Visiting Hour Advice from the Lion Tamer to the Poetry Critic A Creative Writing Tutor Addresses his Star Pupil The Kingdom Married Life in the Nineties The Deconstruction Industry Hangover Hotel Edinburgh in Summer Jacko Holed Up In Blackfriars Street B and B?? My Dentist, Aniela Breaking the Hoodoo Sevenling (Elizabeth had II) Plastic Cork Sky Blue The Preacher’s Ear Holiday at the New Butlins Glory Box The Scuffle

About the Author :
Rob A. Mackenzie was born in Glasgow and lives in Edinburgh. His previous work includes The Opposite of Cabbage (Salt 2009) and two pamphlets: Fleck and the Bank (Salt 2012), which dramatized a bank employee’s life during the financial crisis, and The Clown of Natural Sorrow, (HappenStance Press 2005). Carrie Etter, in the TLS, wrote that his first collection impressed “with its distinctive style and energetic exploration of the way we live now.” He is reviews editor for Magma Poetry magazine.

Review :
Nudging at the curious in the everyday is typical of Mackenzie’s work ... These are honest poems with a humane touch that takes them beyond their surface familiarities. A small book but it’s consistently interesting. As they say, you can't break the rules unless you know them, and Mackenzie's clearly qualified to break them. Intelligent, well-crafted poems. Witty and humane, with a quiet quirkiness. Intellectual resourcefulness formal assurance and a copious imagination underpin MacKenzie’s intuitive mastery of our post – almost- everything, huge, tiny, sad, happy, global Scottish moment Intellectual resourcefulness formal assurance and a copious imagination underpin MacKenzie’s intuitive mastery of our post – almost- everything, huge, tiny, sad, happy, global Scottish moment