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 Kruje, 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.
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 Kruje, 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.
* His previous collection was a PBS Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize. * Rory is a well-known figure in poetry, regularly writing for PN Review and the TLS, and he lectures in English at Nottingham Trent University. * This collection is more international in focus, though not entirely eschewing the personal intimacy of his previous poetry. * Includes themes of class, faith and doubt, contemporary English society and European, cultural and national identity. * Contains more formal and experimental forms of poetry than his first collection.
Rory Waterman was born in Belfast in 1981, grew up in rural Lincolnshire, and lives in Nottingham, where he is Senior Lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University. His first collection of poetry, 'Tonight the Summer's Over', was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize.
'Rory Waterman writes poems of the kind there'll always be a need for' - Alan Jenkins; `By just picking his words with an almost scientific exactitude he makes a poem that is meditative and unforced.' - The Irish Examiner; `Waterman is at once restrained and assured. He has a fine eye for a poem's architecture, playing with symmetry, taking pleasure in the shape of the page, and he demonstrates a remarkably good ear.' - John Greening
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