reaper in a headlock (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781917617734)

In reaper in a headlock, Simon Alderwick writes poems that move like breath, sometimes prayer, sometimes punch, always human. These are pieces rooted in the everyday, a fridge note, a kids' kite in a storm, a late night drink, a hospital room, yet they keep opening onto stranger, wider weather. Across sequences of fatherhood, belief, boredom, addiction, grief, and the uneasy modern noise of 'culture', Alderwick's lines slip between tenderness and bite. A poem can be a love story written on post it notes, a boxing gym lit by cuss words and velcro, a fable made of coinage and stained glass, or a river that carries the dead and the living in the same current. By turns surreal, funny, and devastating, reaper in a headlock is a book about trying to outlast the inevitable, and learning, again and again, what it means to stay in the room.