'Every poem in this book is a marvel. Taken all together they make up a work of almost miraculous depth and beauty' Sally Rooney'A poetry debut fit to compare with Seamus Heaney. This wonderful long poem is up there with the greats' Sunday TimesShortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection When Stephen Sexton was young, video games were a way to slip through the looking glass; to be in two places at once; to be two people at once. In these poems about the death of his mother, this moving, otherworldly narrative takes us through the levels of Super Mario World, whose flowered landscapes bleed into our world, and ours, strange with loss, bleed into it. His remarkable debut is a daring exploration of memory, grief and the necessity of the unreal.

If All the World and Love Were Young

Sexton, Stephen

Parenting & Relationships

Penguin

Cheryl's Destinies

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Product Description 
Oils is a gorgeous, beguiling collection of poems where the poise of the delivery belies the emotional, existential turmoil within. 
Through his portraits of an atheist, a pickpocket and a spinach-loving sailor (among others), Sexton evokes a strange kind of melancholy as he strives to reconcile passion with detachment and profound self-doubt with unwavering love. 
This is the debut pamphlet of Stephen Sexton, who has gone on to win awards including the National Poetry Competition and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. 
 Review 
'The Choice for this quarter is Stephen Sexton's Oils: a series of finely crafted and vibrant poems, playing out central concerns of loss and dislocation. An astute observer, Sexton's points of reference are various - paintings, cartoons and Greek mythology. [...] The authenticity of Sexton's voice earns the reader's trust and attention.' -- the Selectors' Comment in the PBS Bulletin 
'These are poems to make you ponder - to read and re-read, savouring the language and reflecting on the mysterious subjects at hand as you go. [...] Such is the scope of the poems included - from the haunting 'The Death of Horses', to the more satirical 'Credit History', and the innocence of 'Subimago' - that Oils quickly hooks you with its ambition. It brings wit, melancholy and irony to the table, blurring the lines of what we think and know and dream to great effect.'-- Claire Savage, reviewing for Culture Northern Ireland 
'If it wasn't for Frances Leviston's Disinformation last month, it would've been a long time since I'd read poems that rewarded both a careful and painstaking unspooling of thought and a quick skim over a brilliant surface. Sexton here uses an apparently straightforward (nay, breezy) narrative register to cover for a deep investigation into the nature of life, death and our ability to perceive their intermingling. [...] Oils has a winning sincerity, perhaps 'faithfulness' is a better word, that even in the face of the often cruel and arbitrary worlds of its poems, there is usually something wonderful and strange.' - Dave Coates on Dave Poems 
'I am always convinced there is something interesting going on, some depth of thought, some originality of observation and expression. [...] The language is slightly elevated, and the emotional punch hits dead centre.' -- Stephen Payne, reviewing for Sabotage Reviews 
'Oils is a tremendously academic, intellectual, crafted work, but I don't believe it requires you to be an intellectual, academic craftsman to take it apart and put it back together. It is not, in other words, poetry that speaks only to other capital P Poets. It exists in uncertainty, in unanswered questions, in the commonplace passivity of life, as much as it exists in communion with old myths and old masters.' -- Dan Micklethwaite on SmallTimeBooks 
'A restless shadow ripples beneath the surface of Oils by Stephen Sexton, his sixteen-poem debut pamphlet published by the Emma Press, and will stalk you long after the book has been placed back on its shelf. [...] the poetic hand of Sexton, sure and swift, sweeps us foraging eagerly from one poetic gem to the next.' - Jade Cuttle for Cadaverine Magazine 
 About the Author 
Stephen Sexton lives in Belfast. His poems have appeared in Granta, POETRY, and Best British Poetry 2015. His pamphlet, Oils, was the Poetry Book Society's Winter Pamphlet Choice. He was the winner of the 2016 National Poetry Competition, the recipient of an ACES award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2018.

Oils

Emma Press

In Stephen Sexton' s remarkable debut, the video games of his childhood are once again a way to slip through the looking glass; to be in two places at once; to be two people at once. In these poems about the death of his mother, Sexton charts the familiar levels of Super Mario World, whose flowered landscapes bleed into our world-- and ours, strange with loss, bleed into it. This moving, otherworldly narrative is a daring exploration of memory, grief, and the necessity of the unreal.

Wake Forest University Press

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