Abigail Parry's Jinx is The Telegraph's Poetry Debut of the Year
‘Monsters, masquerades and B-movie stars are all serenaded in infectious rhythm and rhyme in the year’s most exciting poetry debut.’ – The Telegraph (2018’s Top 50 Books)
'Abigail Parry’s Jinx is pure magic — dangerous, soulful and splendidly virtuosic.’ – Kate Wakeling, Morning Star (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
POEM OF THE WEEK IN THE TELEGRAPH
Abigail Parry's poem 'The fuss you made about your wedding veil' was Tristram Fane Saunders' Poem of the Week in The Telegraph of 31 October 2020.
'Of the 100 or so poetry books I have reviewed for this paper since 2017, there's none I've returned to more often, or with more pleasure, than Abigail Parry's Jinx. Dark and mischievous, it's a perfect Hallowe'en read.' - Tristram Fane Saunders, The Daily Telegraph, Poem of the Week
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JINX IS POETRY DEBUT OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH
The Telegraph, 2018’s Top 50 Books (all genres) & Poetry Books of the Year features, Saturday 10 November 2018
Abigail Parry’s Forward Prize shortlisted debut collection Jinx was featured at No 11 in The Telegraph’s 2018 Top 50 list (all genres), where it was illustrated with a colour cover thumbnail.
The above quote was extracted from Tristram Fane Saunders’ Poetry Books of the Year column in The Telegraph of the same date.
‘Abigail Parry’s seductive Jinx deserves every horror award going. Monsters, masquerades and B-movie stars are all serenaded in infectious rhythm and rhyme. It’s the most exciting debut of the year, only matched for delirious energy by Kaveh Akbar’s Calling a Wolf a Wolf…’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph (Poetry Books of the Year 2018)
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Jinx was also Tristram Fane Saunders’ Poetry Book of the Month for March 2018 in his Telegraph column.
‘With macabre wit and a gothic sense of romance, Jinx returns obsessively to a handful of images. It gives the collection a singular and cohesive vision, while also turning it into a claustrophobic, repetitive nightmare. It may not be to everyone’s taste. For this reader, it was electrifying…. Jinx is a charming collection. Read it at your peril.’ – Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph, Poetry Book of the Month
Click here to read his in-depth review.
Abigail Parry's debut collection Jinx, published by Bloodaxe Books in March 2018, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, one of the Forward Prizes 2018.
The Forward Arts Foundation in conversation with Abilgail Parry here. Poem feature on the Forward Prizes website: 'Girl to Snake' from Jinx is here.
An interview with Abigail Parry is on South Bank Poetry here. 'Jinx is playful, loud and beautiful.' - Katherine Lockton, introducing Abigail Parry.
Abigail wrote a piece for The Poetry School's blog on her poem ‘The nine lives you might have lived, were it not for the nine thin spells through your heart’ from Jinx. Click here to read.
Carol Rumens discussed Abigail Parry's poem ‘The Quilt’ from Jinx in her Poem of the Week column for 30 April 2018 in The Guardian here. Carol commends Abigail Parry’s ‘linguistic zest’
A film of Abigail reading the poem can be seen here:
Abigail Parry reading from Jinx
Abigail Parry reads eight poems from Jinx: ‘Arterial’, ‘The Man Who’, ‘Goat’, ‘Emma, you’re a gamer’, ‘J♥’, ‘The Lemures’, ‘The Courtesan Jigoku Dayū sees herself as a skeleton in the mirror of Hell’ and ‘Turn the Blue Iris’.
[05 December 2018]
