Union: New & Selected Poems

Union brings together two decades'' worth of Paul Summers'' poems, drawing on books and pamphlets, performance pieces and collaborations, as well as a long and previously unpublished sequence about the North of England, ''broken land''.

Summers is a poet of place and of travel, of exile and of home, combining the domestic and the epic, the personal and the political, the rhetorical and the confessional. He is a Blyth Spartans fan, a proud Northumbrian internationalist and a fervent celebrant of the idea of ''we'' – of community, people and hope – of the notion of union itself.

"Chilling and often funny, driven by love and anger, a striking testament to northern life."
Sean O''Brien, The Northern Review

"... evocative power in mundane things..."
Alan Brownjohn, Sunday Times

"Bristlingly gifted."
Dazed & Confused.

"Baudelaire in a Blyth Spartans shirt."
The Morning Star

Paul Summers was born in Blyth, Northumberland in 1967. He currently lives in Queensland, Australia. A founding editor of the magazines Billy Liar and Liar Republic, he has written extensively for TV, film, radio and the theatre. His first full collection of poetry, The Last Bus, was published by Iron Press (1998) to critical acclaim, and the title sequence was included in The Forward Book of Poetry (1998). His other books include Cunawabi, The Rat''s Mirror, Beer & Skittles, Vermeer''s Dark Parlour, Big Bella''s Dirty Cafe, Dreams Days Break Portfolio (with photographer David Gray) and Three Men on the Metro (with Andy Croft and Bill Herbert, 2009).

Union brings together two decades'' worth of Paul Summers'' poems, drawing on books and pamphlets, performance pieces and collaborations, as well as a long and previously unpublished sequence about the North of England, ''broken land''.

Summers is a poet of place and of travel, of exile and of home, combining the domestic and the epic, the personal and the political, the rhetorical and the confessional. He is a Blyth Spartans fan, a proud Northumbrian internationalist and a fervent celebrant of the idea of ''we'' – of community, people and hope – of the notion of union itself.

"Chilling and often funny, driven by love and anger, a striking testament to northern life."
Sean O''Brien, The Northern Review

"... evocative power in mundane things..."
Alan Brownjohn, Sunday Times

"Bristlingly gifted."
Dazed & Confused.

"Baudelaire in a Blyth Spartans shirt."
The Morning Star

Paul Summers was born in Blyth, Northumberland in 1967. He currently lives in Queensland, Australia. A founding editor of the magazines Billy Liar and Liar Republic, he has written extensively for TV, film, radio and the theatre. His first full collection of poetry, The Last Bus, was published by Iron Press (1998) to critical acclaim, and the title sequence was included in The Forward Book of Poetry (1998). His other books include Cunawabi, The Rat''s Mirror, Beer & Skittles, Vermeer''s Dark Parlour, Big Bella''s Dirty Cafe, Dreams Days Break Portfolio (with photographer David Gray) and Three Men on the Metro (with Andy Croft and Bill Herbert, 2009).