Hybrid Publishers
Autographs - Alex Skovron
The 56 prose-poems that make up this collection explore provinces of the self – time and the allure of memory, the mosaics and masks of identity, fantasy’s realms, eros and the affections, the will to imagination, our shifting perspectives on ‘reality’.
We visit mythical lands and real cities – including Venice, Jerusalem, Katowice, and the Sydney of the author’s youth – lightly stepping across continents and delving into assorted time-frames. Skovron catches meanings lurking at the edges of (un)consciousness, exploring the actual and the surreal, faith and self-knowledge, destiny, relationship, personal histories and obsessions.
His reach, however, extends beyond past, present and future. Touching on contemporary issues (say terrorism, alienation, global conflict), he transcends them and transforms … sometimes evincing deep feeling, at other times apparent irony and detachment. Everyday scenes are transfigured with oblique qualifiers and sudden sleights of hand. Words fly off, now in fresh coinages, now mysteriously yoked together, but behind the illusions of randomness is a controlling and masterful sensibility.
Of especial interest to the author are the poetic dimensions and musical possibilities of prose. While the order of the pieces across the book’s three sections has been carefully plotted, they all stand as self-contained compositions linked, sometimes, by recurring motifs and echoes from one voice to another. Autographs is a book of many voices – and of the many signatures that underwrite our times.
An earlier version of Autographs was awarded the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry in 2005, and in the following year was shortlisted for the Alec Bolton Prize for an unpublished manuscript. Now in stock.
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