Philip Gross

The Thirteenth Angel

Publication Date : 17 Nov 2022

ISBN: 9781780376356

Pages: 65
Size :216 x 138mm
Rights: World

Shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize 2022

Poetry Book Society Recommendation

With each new collection, Philip Gross’ poems extend their conversation between the metaphysical and the acutely physical. His sequences in The Thirteenth Angel scan from moment to moment like flickering needles, registering stress patterns in the world around us – ebbs and flows of weather or events, in our own bodies, in the city streets before and after the pandemic, or on the autoroutes of Europe with their undertow of human flight. If there are angels, they are nothing otherworldly, but formed by angles of incidence between real immediate things, sudden moments of clarity that may disturb, calm or exhilarate.

The Thirteenth Angel is Philip Gross’s 27th book of poetry, and his 12th from Bloodaxe. It was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2022, and was on the shortlist for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2022.

'The Thirteenth Angel, like all Philip Gross’s work, fuses the physical and the metaphysical, and lights the profoundest subject matter with shafts of playful humour. He is a poet with exceptional gifts of observation, whether it’s a panoramic view of the earth and its inhabitants or ‘the mutterings of quiet circumstance / under the threshold of attention’.' – Jean Sprackland, Chair of Judges, T.S. Eliot Prize 2022

‘Mastery is what you would wish for in a 27th collection and it is what you find in Philip Gross’s The Thirteenth Angel, shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize... His easy, fluent ways with form contrast with his conflicted subject matter. He has a questing eye and now, more than ever, writes to make sense of the world in its inexplicable multiplicity.’ ’ – Kate Kellaway, The Observer (Poetry book of the month)

‘Gross presents us hurtling forwards, across the circuit board of the modern city, but making the same old mistakes. What we need is perspective, an opportunity to gain some objectivity, and The Thirteenth Angel offers us this divine intervention [of angels] and the opportunity to step outside of ourselves and to view the world from a fresh angle.' - John Field, T.S. Eliot Prize reviewer

‘Philip Gross has long since found his groove. His 27th collection, The Thirteenth Angel, muses on shadows and light, reflections and absences…’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Daily Telegraph, reviewing the T S Eliot Prize shortlist

‘Philip Gross’s The Thirteenth Angel is a book with its finger firmly on the pulse of the sounds of the contemporary world... Gross uses language which is precise and sharp one moment and then veers into a familiar colloquial style the next, which makes him intensely readable.’ – Mona Arshi, PBS Selector, Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Winter 2022

'An unashamedly conceptual and ambitious book... Gross has written a coercively memorable book about the tumults of our time that makes the art of forgetting as enticing as the art of remembering.' – Kit Fan, The Poetry Review, on The Thirteenth Angel

'Its fertility in ideas, images and perceptions is almost breath-taking. So is the vivid precision of its language of physical description. The world it presents is above all crowded with movement. This is a part of the experience of modern life that Gross captures brilliantly. Glittering details seem to leap off every page ... The Thirteenth Angel offers an almost continuous exultation in the sheer plenitude of life and a rejoicing in opulent language.' – Edmund Prestwich, The North

‘Philip Gross has been publishing poetry for more than forty years and this is an experienced collection in all senses of the word: full of literary expertise but also the pleasures and tolls of maturity…. ‘Angel’ means ‘messenger’, and this sense of poetry’s communicative power – at once modest and metaphysical – is the defining feature of this memorable, strange and often beautiful collection.’ – Victoria Moul, The Friday Poem, on The Thirteenth Angel

‘The Thirteenth Angel, his 27th book of poetry, is [a] refreshingly outward-looking collection, comprising a series of long, descriptive/contemplative pieces interleaved with shorter poems. Reading the whole book is a deeply absorbing, enlightening and thought-provoking experience. I greatly enjoyed Gross’s constantly inventive ways with form and language… truly magnificent…’ – Jill Sharp, The High Window

‘A preoccupation with matter attends Philip Gross’ new book of poetry, The Thirteenth Angel ...The Thirteenth Angel moves out of the shadows of his previous books, by placing matter — its presence and absence, and the interplay — as part of larger questions of embodiment, attention and breath. Gross however creates new poetic worlds by allowing digital spheres inside us, as part of a fresh reckoning of human and machine, in bits and bytes of digital pulse.’ – Amlanjyoti Goswami, Review 31

‘Gross is a consummate master of figures of speech, many of them satisfyingly original ... It has been a privilege and a pleasure to read and review a collection which emphasises the achievements of Philip Gross, one of our major contemporary poets, and easy to see why it is a PBS Recommendation, and was shortlisted for the 2022 T.S. Eliot Prize.’ – Philip Dunkerley, Orbis, on The Thirteenth Angel

‘The Thirteenth Angel is Philip Gross’ twenty-seventh collection and it’s a masterly addition to an already impressive corpus of work. A Poetry Book Society Recommendation, it was also shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize (which Gross won in 2009 with The Water Table) and it continues Gross’ metaphysical investigation of the relationship of the self to the wider world.’ – Vicky MacKenzie, New Welsh Review

‘The poetry in The Thirteenth Angel… is beautiful, breathtakingly brilliant, visionary, and profound… Anyone with any pretension to being a poet should definitely read this one: inspiring stuff for any reader, poet or poetry-lover alike.’ – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine

‘This is a magical, lyrical wonder of a collection which will be read again and again…’ – Frank Startup, The School Librarian, on The Thirteenth Angel

Philip Gross reads ‘Of Breath (Thirteen Angels’) from The Thirteenth Angel for the T.S. Eliot Prize video readings series.

Philip Gross reads ‘Moon, O’) from The Thirteenth Angel for the T.S. Eliot Prize video readings series.

Philip Gross reads ‘In the Light of the Times’ (‘Springtime in Pandemia’, 4) from The Thirteenth Angel for the T.S. Eliot Prize video readings series.