Wayne Holloway-Smith: the posh mums are boxing in the square from Bloodaxe Books on Vimeo.
Wayne Holloway-Smith's debut, Alarum (Bloodaxe Books, 2017) was a PBS Wildcard Choice for Winter 2017, shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2017, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection 2018, and longlisted for the 2019 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. He received his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Brunel University in 2015 and teaches at the University of Hertfordshire. He won the National Poetry Competition 2018 for 'the posh mums are boxing in the square’ from Love Minus Love, which is due out in September. This video was produced by Bloodaxe Books.
Wayne Holloway-Smith's second full collection, Love Minus Love, is an internal universe, fragmented and glued back together with uncanny logic. A strange layering of time, in which multiple things happen at once, in a looping track of intrusive thoughts – shot through with dead cows, pop songs, dead dads, the white noise of televisions – rotten teeth are raining everywhere. Somewhere at the core of all this, the seemingly fixed boundaries of masculinity, class, family, trauma and mental health are blurred towards a new type of vinegary identity, in a pitch of emotional intensity that punches you right in the gut.
"Such inventive, memorable and sardonic phrase making fills Love Minus Love. A startling and unconventional experiment rooted in childhood, place, masculinity and the environment, Holloway-Smith bridges seemingly disparate subjects to create a coherent and tender experience." - Anthony Anaxagorou, PBS Selector
PBS Members can pre-order Love Minus Love, the Summer Wild Card here with their 25% PBS Member discount. Due out September.