Name: If All the World and Love Were Young
Rating: 0 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9780141990026

Stephen Sexton

If All the World and Love Were Young

Winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize A Sunday Times, New Statesman and Telegraph Book of the Year 2019 'Every poem in this book is a marvel. Taken all together they make up a work of almost miraculous depth and beauty' Sally Rooney 'A poetry debut fit to compare with Seamus Heaney. This wonderful long poem is up there with the greats' Sunday Times When Stephen Sexton was young, video games were a way to slip through the looking glass; to be in two places at once; to be two people at once. In these poems about the death of his mother, this moving, otherworldly narrative takes us through the levels of Super Mario World, whose flowered landscapes bleed into our world, and ours, strange with loss, bleed into it. His remarkable debut is a daring exploration of memory, grief and the necessity of the unreal.

No rating, need to re-read to really sink my teeth into it, but my god. Photography, video games, and grief as avenues in between worlds, masterfully evoked in a style of poetry whose ideas spill into each other, blurring sentiment. Wonderful. Thank you for lending Nico.

If All the World and Love Were Young

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