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Blueprints for a Minefield

£5.99

by Shauna Robertson
36pp +4pp poetry pamphlet
Full colour cover
First published April 2016
210 x 138 mm
Cover Design – Tim Keates, The Fayre

Winner of the 2016 Fair Acre Press Poetry Pamphlet Competition  – judged by 2014 Costa Poetry Award winning Jonathan Edwards
Live outside UK & Eire? Contact Fair Acre Press by email if you would like to buy this, or any other books on the website

Description

How far would you go to attract, hold onto, or lose a lover? In Blueprints for a Minefield, we find women trying their luck with Jesus, marrying trees and plotting murder. Meanwhile, one male suitor makes a dessert of himself while another takes mortal risks on a trapeze. James Dean returns from the dead. A fish covets a bicycle. Will anyone find their green grass, their grapefruit moon?

“In these emotive reflections on modern relationships, the formal range – from sestina to prose poem to playscript to Oulipo-inspired textual experiment – is dazzling. Poems like ‘Lead Me on with My Eyes Blindfolded’ and ‘The Woman Who Married an Oak’ are laugh-out-loud funny.

Above all, though, it is the astonishing originality of Shauna Robertson’s voice – ‘If the hair could be blonder still and grown and grown until it transcends state lines,’ ‘I’m not against standing up straight so long as I don’t look too tall or too short or too medium or like a loudspeaker’ – that stands out.”

Jonathan Edwards

“Witty, energetic and original, Shauna Robertson’s Blueprints for a Minefield is a delightful read and a most welcome debut.”

Carrie Etter

“Shauna Robertson has written a rich, compelling book of poetry that deserves to be widely read.

Blueprints for a Minefield is full of standout poems. Sometimes heartbreaking, often funny, this is a wholly original pamphlet.”

James O’Leary for Sabotage Reviews   Go here for the full review

David Troman for Orbis #178 magazine (excerpt):

“If Alice wanted to impress the Queen of Hearts with poetry, this is the book she would read. Initially, it seems surreal.

However, by the time you’ve read half a dozen pages, the surreal is accepted as the norm, and your brain directed beyond conventional perception by Robertson’s vivid imagery.

… An entertaining, sometimes challenging read – why not take up the challenge?”

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