Anthony Joseph

Rubber Orchestras Anthony Joseph

Taking its name from a poem by American surrealist Ted Joans, Rubber Orchestras is an energetic, sensuous and intriguing collection of poems, written over a period of four years with an (as yet) undisclosed method of composition the writer calls Liminalism. This collection was selected from 100 poems written using this method. This is the poets' most radical work so far, in parts psychedelic, surrealist but always engaging.

This is an experimental collection but only in the sense that poetry should always be a means of searching out the gaps and crevices of language. Each reader will have a different experience of these poems.

The book is divided into three sections: Precious and Impossible - a selection of poems influenced in subject and style by calypso and Jazz. The Colony of Light - poems concerning Caribbean history and society. And Grotesquerie, in which there are darker, more obscure poems.

Apart from the influence of Ted Joans's surrealism, the resonance of Bob Kaufman, Will Alexander, Ira Cohen, and Caribbean poets such as Derek Walcott and Kamau Brathwaite can be felt throughout. It contains all the trademarks which have informed Joseph's work for the past decade; the blending of syncopated caribbean rhythms with surrealism and the sensual, painstaking attention to each phrase. With this volume Joseph returns to the exciting experimentalism of his landmark collection Teragaton.

This is a unique text, suggesting a new way of writing but perhaps also, a new way of reading.

This is the fourth collection from Anthony Joseph after Desafinado in 1994, Teragaton in 1997 and Bird Head Son, 2009.