From its opening page - a refugee's first sight of England - Changes of Address presents a journey through our times, a search for the meaning of `home'. With its humour and deep honesty, its vivid storytelling, its sense of history and brilliant observations of the here and now, this book of poems is as rich and multi-layered as a novel. It brings together for the first time the whole range of Philip Gross's poetry from the 1980s and 90s - a generous selection from his Bloodaxe, Faber and Peterloo collections along with uncollected poems and work from limited editions and collaborations. Changes of Address shows his development from the prize-winning Ice Factory to the Whitbread-shortlisted Wasting Game, but takes the reader also into previously unknown reaches of Philip Gross territory. It does not cover his later work. He won the T.S. Eliot Prize for his 2009 collection The Water Table. Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.
About the Author :
Born in Cornwall, son of an Estonian wartime refugee,Philip Grosshas lived in Plymouth, Bristol and South Wales, where he was Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University (USW). His 27th collection,The Thirteenth Angel(2022), is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and is shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022. It follows eleven previous books with Bloodaxe, includingBetween the Islands(2020),A Bright Acoustic(2017),Love Songs of Carbon(2015), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation;Deep Field(2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation;The Water Table(2009), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2009; andChanges of Address: Poems 1980-1998(2001), his selection from earlier books includingThe Ice Factory, Cat's Whisker, The Son of the Duke of Nowhere, I.D.andThe Wasting Game. SinceThe Air Mines of Mistila(with Sylvia Kantaris, Bloodaxe Books, 1988), he has been a keen collaborator, most recently with artist Valerie Coffin Price onA Fold in the River(2015), with poet Lesley Saunders onA Part of the Main(2018), and with Welsh-languagebarddCyril Jones onTroeon/Turnings(2021).I Spy Pinhole Eye(Cinnamon Press, 2009), with photographer Simon Denison, won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2010. He received a Cholmondeley Award in 2017. Philip Gross's poetry for young people includesManifold Manor, The All-Nite Cafe(winner of the Signal Award 1994),Off Road to Everywhere(winner of the CLPE Award 2011) and the poetry-science collectionDark Sky Park(shortlisted for the CLiPPA award 2019).
