Weaver in the Sluices: Selected Poems

Daniel Staniforth's debut collection of over 100 poems emerges from under the mantle of Dylan Thomas, Wilfred Owen and all those for whom the beauty and sound of language, and depths of imagery, were the primary focus. There is a strong current of Englishness weaving through Daniel's work and a deep connection with natural magic and the soul of the land, but he is diverse enough to take in the bleak and the gritty as well as his finely crafted dreamworlds.

About the Author :
Daniel Staniforth is a British writer, composer and teacher, recently serving for three years at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics' Summer Writing Programme in the US. His music recordings include works by Alchymical Muse, Luna Trick and Rebsie Fairholm, with whom he works regularly. Daniel writes poetry, fiction and literary analysis.

Review :
'Daniel Staniforth's book of poems Weaver in the Sluices is an intermixing of zones where the light of the waking body rises and transmixes its power with falling uranian whispers. These poems exist at the cusp where both realities overspill and condense, making fleeting forays into the unsayable." - Will Alexander, author of The Sri Lankan Loxodrome and Above the Human Nerve Domain. 'In Weaver in the Sluices, Daniel Staniforth pulls variously from Bardic tradition, contemporary lament, and surrealist landscapes to "filter the nutrients of thought." The poet invokes erotic passion and political protest alike, all while navigating the "midriff of the sun," "star-widths of fancy" and the "nape of the sea." In these poems, such wonders shift continually between foreground and background to portray a world where, ultimately, "the hollows subsume the shape." ' - Elizabeth Robinson, author of Inaudible Trumpeters and The Orphan & its Relations. 'Composer and musical producer as well as poet, what strikes me most profoundly about Staniforth's work is his training as a musical instrument luthier, a skill as sensitive as it is intuitive. For it is this sensitivity and intuition, this fine-tuning, that is most uniquely present in Weaver in the Sluices. These poems spring resonant from the page. It is especially in the imagery of the longer pieces that the poet's originality shines. A book to be savoured!' - Margaret Randall, author of Stones Witness and Ruins.