The Penguin Modern Poets are succinct guides to the richness and diversity of contemporary poetry. Every volume brings together representative selections from the work of three poets now writing, allowing the curious reader and the seasoned lover of poetry to encounter the most exciting voices of our moment.
". . . by the bollocks I mind, by the virgin I'm like, by the smell of teen spirit, the punch that I spike,
"by hydro and chronic and eight-legged sparks, by G-strings and tassels, by bummers and narcs,
"by the temples I razed with a swish of my tail, by the models of Jupiter I built to full scale,
"I am a man of few words, each one a thrown switch. Shall I name the mouth-breathers at whom I pitch
"with superstitious loathing these excretions oozing bile? Then pull up a chair. This could take a while." - MICHAEL ROBBINS, 'Space Mountain'
"I was born as a woman, I talk you to death, or else your ear off, or else you to sleep. What do I have, all the time in the world, and a voice that swings brass back and forth, you can hear it, and a focal point where my face should be. What do I have, I have absolute power, and what I want is your money, your drool, and your mind, and the sense of myself as a snake, and a garter in the grass . . . Why do I do it is easy, I am working my way through school. Give me the money for Modernism, and give me the money for what comes next." - PATRICIA LOCKWOOD, 'The Hypno-Domme Speaks, and Speaks and Speaks'
". . . we just hugged, sat on a high up bench somewhere not that secret really off the Lewes road, afternoon of gold and magpies on a cusp. But no wholly
"depth-charge branch is too white, padded shot a mushroom cap a cheapened rink ice age glass of frozen, uplit tongues unleaven how I never meant for you to drink
"a glass of day-old wholly sincere spit who under maketh spring sew tongues into my pocket tongue of day-old really salt-sincere snow
"bell ring lhude sing and not just sitting on a bench how much we want to fuck in circling spring . . ." - TIMOTHY THORNTON, 'Broadcast'
