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The Ministry of Emergency Situations

by Todd Swift

THE MINISTRY OF EMERGENCY SITUATIONS

The Ministry of Emergency Situations by Todd Swift

Paperback
Publication Date: Fall 2014
205 Pages
ISBN13: 978-1-934851-52-4
USD $19.99 + Shipping

Todd Swift has an entry in The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English (second edition, 2013), which lists the most influential poets since 1910. Over the past three decades Swift has established himself as one of the most international, stylish, and generous, of poet-editors now at work in the English language. His poetry has been almost unique in combining equal measures of erudition and emotionality, modern rhetoric and postmodern pastiche, experiment and lyricism. Swift’s formal virtuosity, sense of poetic artifice and love of word play, are constantly challenged by the desire to also sincerely explore (if not express), issues of the body and soul: desire, rage, fear, loss of faith and love reformed.

About the Author, Todd Swift

hunthspace=10 Todd Swift, born 1966, is a widely-known British-Canadian poet, editor, critic and anthologist. He has published eight previous full-length poetry collections, and edited or co-edited numerous international anthologies of note. His poems have appeared in leading publications, including Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry London, and The Guardian. He is Director of Eyewear Publishing, and has been a teacher of creative writing at various British universities. He holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. He was Oxfam Great Britain’s Poet-in-residence in 2004. He is married and lives in England.

Reviews

“If you are new, as I was, to the poems of Todd Swift you will fi nd a feast of moods and modes in his fantastic batch of selected poems. This collection displays an amazing poetic breadth bounding from popular culture to religion to family. Elegiac, whimsical, meditative, The Ministry of Emergency Situations is a cornucopia of resonant songs and insights. Todd Swift is a revelation.” — Terrance Hayes

“Todd Swift's energetic and seemingly inexhaustible imagery drives his poems to the exquisite edge of distraction. The disconcertingly ingenious seascape of this variegated collection is shot through with startling and quotable insights like empathetic islands, like koans. Donne and Ashbery, Marvell and O'Hara all preside at the feast of this generous poetic imagination.” — Annie Finch

“Todd Swift writes about humans underneath their skins. On the surface these poems engage with Goethe, The Fantastic Four, Charlotte Rampling and the detritus of contemporary life; but these things are portals through which the poetic lines access the ethereal connections between beings. These poems are the magic tendrils that emerge when one person reaches for another: they grip hard, and then dissipate into a magician’s puff of smoke.” — James Franco

Upcoming Events

Sept24The Poets’ Follies Reading Series, sponsored by Marick Press and The Oakland University Writing Center, will feature the poetry of David Young, Todd Swift and Jason Storms at 6:30PM. The reading will be followed by a question and answer session.
Wednesday September 24, 2014
6:30PM, Room 212, Kresge Library at Oakland University
Rochester, MI 48309

- For more info...