LUKE ROBERTS
GLACIAL DECOYS
Luke Roberts was born in 1987, and grew up in the North of Wales and the North of England. He is the author of many chapbooks, including Landscaping Under Duress (Equipage, 2021), Inhalers (Equipage, 2020) and Sorbet (Punch Press, 2018). His long poem 'To My Contemporaries' was published in Chicago Review in 2017. He is the editor of Desire Lines: Unselected Poems, 1966-2000 by Barry MacSweeney (Shearsman, 2018), and the author of Barry MacSweeney and the Politics of Post-War British Poetry: Seditious Things (Palgrave, 2017). He lives and works in London.
“Themselves fragmentary, often sharp and jagged, the essays in “Glacial Decoys” are collected with care, tenderness, and even humor. In the absence of music, this book tries to keep its own time, to duck and dance with grace against a backdrop of harsh images.”
REVIEWS
“Luke Roberts’ GLACIAL DECOYS (Boise, ID: Free Poetry) is a subterranean tour de force in balancing the discursive and the immersive.”
“I think of the snarky assessment of contemporary cultural institutions in Luke Roberts’ Glacial Decoys, as it ranges from magazines like “The White Review, the TLS, the LRB” to funding bodies like “the AHRC,” all the way down to “every single writer’s website I’ve ever seen,” admitting at the last instance “I hate it all” (60).”
TRANSLATIONS
Vernacular Captions in Buenos Aires Poetry:
“And the poets
all chanted:
…….you can’t live good
…….in a bad question
…….you can’t take pleasure
…….in an aquarium
Such strong boundaries,
such strong teeth.
I agree with you.
I agree with each of you
in sequence.”
“Y todos los poetas
corearon:
…….no se puede vivir bien
…….en una mala pregunta
…….no puedes disfrutar
…….en un acuario
Límites tan fuertes,
dientes tan fuertes.
Estoy de acuerdo contigo.
Estoy de acuerdo con cada uno de ustedes
en forma secuencial.”
vernacular Captions in PERFIL:
“ Trata el lugar donde vives
como el remate de una broma
dijo el poeta
a quien sea
sosteniendo el mar
entre tus dientes
y puntadas rosas desgarradas
la textura inexacta
de protección”
First printing 2020
No copyright
No rights received