The Wilderness Party - Softcover

'The Wilderness Party is about the dangerous power of words - as law, as lies, as holy writ - but also brims with love of language. Jackson creates an irresistible poetry of resistance which brings disillusion and delight in equal measure' - Clare Pollard.; 'A.B. Jackson's poems are a model of precision, displaying an intensity of craftsmanship and care that is as rare amongst contemporary poetry as the originality of his imaginative range. Combined with comic panache and a perfect ear, his work - its ethical weight and aesthetic rigour - seems to me to be essential reading for anybody interested in the potential of poetic language' - Ahren Warner.

With its flighty parables and skewed morality tales, The Wilderness Party is an unforgettable record of turbulent times. These are poems of finely-wrought musicality, bristling energy and playful excess. From cream cakes on Shetland to Camberwick Green, from Lyuba the Siberian mammoth to the madness of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, A.B. Jackson approaches personal and historical events with a mixture of wit and wonder. Included in the opening section of individual lyrics is 'Treasure Island', winner of the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. The series 'Natural History' takes a spirited linguistic tour through Pliny the Elder in Elizabethan translation to uncover the myths, mysteries, and uncanny familiarities of animal behaviour. In the twenty-one short fictions of 'Apocrypha', high ideals cavort with low befuddlement as re-cast Biblical characters attempt to make sense of the modern world. The Wilderness Party is Jackson's long-awaited follow-up to his Forward Prize-winning first collection Fire Stations.