Michael Symmons Roberts

A fine set of meditations on those lacunae and interstices of wildness, or at least less emphatically domesticated space, found on the urban periphery and sometimes near its core. Witty and entertaining with lots of fun observations. If you’re in the mood to visit, political, philosophical and environmental themes are there, like edgelands of the text. Despite the jolts the world has experienced since the book’s publication, edgelands, being outside the milieu, haven’t changed much. Long may that continue.… (altro)

Roberts has written this collection of 150 poems, each 15 lines long, on a diverse range of subjects, from the everyday to the ethereal.

Roberts has a control and mastery over the English language that is astonishing at time. He manages to convey his meaning and feelings with scant few words.

There were a few poems in here that I liked a lot, and some that just washed over me. I put that down to my relative inexperience with poetry, rather than the quality of the writing. It is probably worth a re read after I have read some other poets.… (altro)

Most of the non-fiction I read has an element of nature writing about it, but this book is rather more than that. Farley and Roberts aim is to reclaim and celebrate the edgelands that surround our cities, and the book is a fascinating account of the way landscapes are developed either by human intervention or by nature reclaiming what is left behind after human activity.

Both writers are poets, so the book is inevitably reflective and personal, despite the joint authorial voice which makes it impossible to deduce who wrote which parts of it. Many other poets and artists are cited.

Each chapter has a one word title encapsulating its theme - most of them specific human activities ranging from den-building and mining to hotels and airports, and the whole makes a fascinating portrait of the England that many of us take for granted.… (altro)