John Burnside

André Naffis-Sahely

Timothy Donnelly

Andrew Motion

Robert Crawford

Jon Stone

Sarah Howe

Helen Mort

Tim Gunn

Paul Muldoon

Andrew Zurcher

Mina Gorji

W. N. Herbert

Isobel Dixon

Alicia Elsbeth Stallings

John McAuliffe

Leontia Flynn

Peter Manson

Andy Powell

Aisha Farr

Anthony Adler

Aviva Dautch

13 Pages

Nonpareil Press

An Anthology of Imitation

The Mimic Octopus

Traditional accounts of Romantic poetry have depicted John Clare as a peripheral figure, an original genius whose talents removed him from the mainstream. This volume helps to show that far from being brilliant yet isolated, Clare was deeply involved in the rich cultural life of both his village and the larger metropolis. Offering an account of Clare’s poems as they relate to the literary culture and burgeoning literary history of his day, Mina Gorji defines the context in which Clare’s work can best be understood: in relation to eighteenth-century traditions as they persisted and developed in the Romantic period.

John Clare and the Place of Poetry

A Telegraph Poetry Book of the Month (January 2020) Among Mina Gorji's poems in New Poetries V (2011) was one about Houdini entitled 'The Art of Escape' which returns here as the title poem. This colourful and vivid first collection continues the course of Mina Gorji's meticulous explorations of 'the strange and sometimes darker side of nature' and the different forms and meanings of escape: dandelions crossing the ocean, the journey of a gall wasp from Aleppo to England, the transformation of an armadillo into music. These poems shift by degrees until new patterns and sounds emerge, transforming the familiar into unexpected configurations. Art of Escape is a wonderful casting off into the complex waters of adult life, in which change has become the constant.

Art of Escape

Robert Heyes

Peter Reynolds

Carry Akroyd

Mick Schrey

Stephen Colclough

Emma Trehane

Kelsey Thornton 

Greg Crossan

Michael Burnham

The official Journal of the John Clare Society, published annually to reflect the interest in, and approaches to, the life and work of the poet John Clare.

John Clare Society Journal, 24 (2005)

Mina Gorji

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