The Dragon and the Bomb: An Epyllion: 7 (The Emma Press Picks)

In an island kingdom, Don Armando dreams of a dragon-slaying adventure like heroes used to perform. And in a laboratory in a gleaming city, scientist Haplo Nous tinkers towards an atom bomb.

Past, present and future collide in Andrew Wynn Owen's rip-roaring tale, full of rhythmical fireworks and joyous anachronism. This is a clash between chivalric heroics and modern scientific enquiry, and a shaggy-dog story taking in farmers, fisherpeople, flying machines and general derring-do.

Wynn Owen buoyantly reimagines Spenser in the satiric vein of Byron's Don Juan, with a little bit of Monty Python thrown in.

Displaying a mastery of traditional form, rhyme and meter, The Dragon and the Bomb has the technical skill to impress those unconvinced by much modern poetry, while also demonstrating a wholly contemporary wit and manner.

Andrew Wynn Owen is an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. In 2015, he received an Eric Gregory Award and, in 2014, Oxford University s Newdigate Prize. His first poetry pamphlet, Raspberries for the Ferry, was published by the Emma Press in 2014, followed by a collaboration with John Fuller, AWOL, in 2015.