Lines Off

Description

'Lines off' is a term used for lines spoken from the wings of a theatre, or off-camera in a film. It was while Hugo Williams was out of circulation following transplant surgery that he wrote the poems for this new collection - the first since I Knew the Bride (2014), shortlisted for the Forward and T. S. Eliot prizes. From youthful days 'upside down in the Crazy Room, / rising and falling on the Haunted Swing', he takes us to distant countries, both actual and metaphorical; participates in the 'mortal pantomime' of the hospital ward with humorous frankness; and offers a percipient account of growing older, with all its attendant doubts and disturbances. Autobiographical, psychological, remedial, Lines Off heralds the return of this acclaimed poet, back to the stage of the page, offering us 'the performance of a lifetime'.

Hugo Williams was born in 1942 and grew up in Sussex. He worked on the London Magazine from 1961 to 1970, since when he has earned his living as a journalist and travel writer. He is the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, including I Knew the Bride (2014), West End Final (2009), Collected Poems (2002), Billy's Rain (1999), which won the T. S. Eliot Prize, Selected Poems (1989), and his Eric Gregory Award-winning debut, Symptoms of Loss (1965). A selection of his freelance writing appears in the essay collection Freelancing: Adventures of a Poet (1995). His additional honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Cholmondeley Award.

"Williams has a gift for making poetry read as effortlessly as conversation - a huge accomplishment." -- Observer "This highly readable volume turns terrifying experiences into verse that's sometimes hyperreal, sometimes surreal, and often verges on hallucination ... These are haunting, shining, untidy poems ... vivid with emotion and experience." -- Spectator