Ciaran Carson is one of Ulster's ?nest and most forceful poets, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1993 for First Language. That collection saw the ?rst airing of a new narrative technique used throughout Opera Et Cetera: long-lined rhyming couplets echoing Irish ballad metre with its criss-cross assonances. These innovative new poems contemplate the structure and authority of language. The book is framed by two long sequences, one based on the letters of the alphabet, the other on radio operator's code; as distorting mirrors of each other, they continually call into question how we tell each other stories all the time. Two other sequences complete the book: Et Cetera plays with the near-moribund vocabulary of Latin tags, while Alibi consists of versions from Romanian poet Stefan Augustin Doinas. In its juggling with the nuts and bolts of words, in its obsessive musical sweep, Opera Et Cetera is a tour de force. It is also, sometimes, very funny. Poetry Book Society Choice.
| ISBN: | 9781852243968 |
| Publication date: | 25th July 1996 |
| Author: | Ciaran Carson |
| Publisher: | Bloodaxe Books an imprint of Bloodaxe Books Ltd |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 94 pages |
| Genres: |
Poetry by individual poets |
Ciaran Carson is one of Ulster's ?nest and most forceful poets, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1993 for First Language. That collection saw the ?rst airing of a new narrative technique used throughout Opera Et Cetera: long-lined rhyming couplets echoing Irish ballad metre with its criss-cross assonances. These innovative new poems contemplate the structure and authority of language. The book is framed by two long sequences, one based on the letters of the alphabet, the other on radio operator's code; as distorting mirrors of each other, they continually call into question how we tell each other stories all the time. Two other sequences complete the book: Et Cetera plays with the near-moribund vocabulary of Latin tags, while Alibi consists of versions from Romanian poet Stefan Augustin Doinas. In its juggling with the nuts and bolts of words, in its obsessive musical sweep, Opera Et Cetera is a tour de force. It is also, sometimes, very funny. Poetry Book Society Choice.
Opera Et Cetera features in the following genres: Poetry by individual poets
Opera Et Cetera is available in Paperback
Opera Et Cetera was written by Ciaran Carson and published by Bloodaxe Books an imprint of Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Opera Et Cetera has 94 pages