John Foulcher. A Casual Penance
B format paperback. 198 x 128 mm. Full colour cover.
ISBN 978-1-922080-72-1. 82 pages.Price: A$28.00
John Foulcher’s 10th poetry collection A Casual Penance was launched at the Newcastle Writer’s Festival by Melinda Smith on Saturday 8th April 2017.
As Smith explains, the book is divided into three sections:
- ‘First, an astonishing sequence of poems on Toulouse-Lautrec, ‘Crachis’ (named for the spattering technique used by the painter to create mists of colour on his lithographs).
- A central section containing a variety of lyrics, meditations, elegies, a love poem and a nightmare.
- The final section, a sequence of prose poems ‘The Greater Silence’ , which could be characterised as a spiritual autobiography – a re-telling, a re-appraisal of some formative spiritual moments, from 1958 to the present day.’
You can read the full launch speech at the Rochford Street Review.