#fran lock

[emilyvberry]

[desertsongpdf]

ODE TO BROWSING THE INTERNET

[scene from johnny mnemonic / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / x / quote from "in the presence of enemies" by fran lock]

[thelasttraintoarcady]

Really happy to have spent the opening night of my exhibition at Morocco Bound bookshop/gallery with friends old and new. 

My Angels Fran Lock and Gabi Garbutt delivered some great song and poetry and I chipped in with a few as well.

[wolfdownthewords]

We always try to borrow life from living things

‘We will be a nativity’, from the collection The Mystic and The Pig Thief by Fran Lock (2014)

[thelasttraintoarcady]

Our new bookie-wookie explained . . . 

Raptures and Captures follows on from Muses and Bruises and Ruses and Fuses, both published by Culture Matters. It is inspired by liberation theology and a fascination with the continuing relevance of the lives of the saints to a radical, liberating politics. As one poem’s title states, we are ‘In Need of Saints’.

So Fran Lock sets about re-imagining the lives 0f the saints in modern contexts. Apocryphal juxtapositions are sprung in the shapes of modern-day activists, enduring pop-culture icons like Tony Hancock and Ian Curtis, and the exploited, abused and oppressed amongst us.

Fran Lock's poems are slip-stitched with punchy tropes and vivid turns of phrase. There are echoes of Sylvia Plath, John Clare and Gerard Manley Hopkins in her uncompromising psychical explorations, self-scouring confessionalism, and vivid, macabre imageries. Suffering, trauma, and spiritual anguish, and the exhaustion, depression and suicidal ideation of working women and men, all overlaying visions of hope and redemption, are continuous themes in her poems.

The images by Steev Burgess which accompany the poems share and express the same dialectical combination of anger and gentleness, strength and vulnerability. As in the other two volumes, the stunning, taboo-busting collages poignantly combine the grime and glitter of modern life in fragmented, uncertain but coherent juxtapositions of images and words, reinforcing, developing and extending the meanings of the poems.

If you want to, buy it here:-

http://www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/shop-support/our-publications/item/3138-raptures-and-captures?fbclid=IwAR2UTB-6nxeXdKCuANwtYJYTLFc8hZeu9b-A73OcO9f3pFJAJ-gs_AtW65s

£8. ISBN: 978-1-912710-18-8

[thelasttraintoarcady]

“In this age of ugly I dream beauty” collage by Steev Burgess (now in the collection of Fran lock).

[thelasttraintoarcady]

“Searching for Flight”, This collage was inspired by something else I’m working on with Fran Lock and also Nick Cave’s thoughts on God and the love song. Steev Burgess.

[thelasttraintoarcady]

As those who know me can see, I attended Patrick Davidson Roberts' book launch. He has a unique style and his stuff was new to my ears. Two of my favourite poets were reading as well, Abigail Parry and Fran Lock. Two of the people in the room had Fran's words (not all of them obviously) tattooed on their skin - in my eyes that's poetry stardom.