Sarajevo Roses (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781784104085)

Sarajevo Roses is Rory Waterman's second collection of poems. From the start we are in the company of a poet on the move. On sleeper trains, in cars and on foot, Waterman takes us into Mediterranean Europe, to Palma's Bellver Castle, to Venice, to Krujë, to the Italian ghost-town Craco, and to St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, where 'selfie-sticks dance before us at the altar'. Sarajevo's 'neatened muddle of terracotta and concrete' is twinned with the 'church spires and rain-bright roofs' of the poet's former hometown, Lincoln.

The Sarajevo rose of the book's title--a mortar crater filled with red resin, in remembrance--is less an overarching symbol here than one example of the past inscribed upon the present--culturally in our architecture, individually on our bodies--and of the instinct to preserve wounds as a mark of respect, or warning. Surrounded by the war-shaped, memorial landscapes of Europe, the poet is faced by those smaller wars and memorials one carries within, marks left by lovers, friends, relations, and past selves.

Author: Rory Waterman
ISBN-10: 1784104086
ISBN-13: 9781784104085
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Language: English
Published: 12/01/2017
Pages: 66
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.30d