Dr. Mephisto: (Salt Modern Poets)

Dr. Mephisto is in the form of a long sequence of poems. It traces Mephistopheles as he ranges freely through time and space, at times a laconic observer, at others a thuggish participant, but always a presence wherever there is conflict and suffering and whenever there is work to be done. Far from being oppressive, this is an exciting and highly original work, whose exhilarating pace is set by Emery’s innovative use of language and form, and whose acerbic political edge keeps the vision sharp and fresh. Compelling, hard-hitting, and grimly funny, Dr Mephisto will be remembered long after being read, and a significant new poetic voice will have been recognised.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgements The Pendulum The Gift The Levitation Hermes Lives Mephisto Sleeps The Evocation Speech of Asmoday Underground The Flight The Burial The End Sebastião Köpfe Mephisto’s Pockets The Moment The Scourge The Hippogriff The Crucifixion Mephisto Sweeps the Desert Mephisto Redivivus Mephisto Deals the Tarot The Prayer Shulamith The Mother Lullaby To Tease Contrariwise Boom Ballast Mattress Thought Udder Music Transformer Exterminator Pandemonium Cleaving Ariadne Quoit Melatonin Zion Dreck Shulamith’s Night Song Shulamith’s End Song Dream Bunions Bucket Elegy Germinator Generator Drum Song Zero Start Scenario Notes

About the Author :
Chris Emery is a director of Salt. He has published three collections of poetry, a writer’s guide, an anthology of art and poems, and edited editions of Emily Brontë, Keats and Rossetti. His work has been widely published in magazines and anthologised, most recently in Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe). He is a contributor to The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing, edited by David Morley and Philip Neilsen. He lives in Cromer, North Norfolk.

Review :
Chris Emery’s Dr. Mephisto lets the Devil have a little fun and reminds me that eternal damnation can be a Godsend. These poems reimagine excruciatingly the ‘double life’ of the body itself, the life of nervous self-domination and subjection. Recreating a goldmine, an apt circle of Hell, he’s also creating a trope for the destructive greed and wealth of the consumer West. A good first collection. Vivid, pungent stanzas. Certainly you will not have read any other poetry book like this, and Goethe and Christopher Marlowe must surely have been looking approvingly over Chris Emery’s shoulder when he was writing, gasping at his command of language.