Englaland - - Steve Ely - Paperback Bog - Smokestack Books - 2015 - Engelsk - Booktok.dk

Description

After the battle of Brunanburh, when Æthelstan''s army defeated an invading alliance of Scots, Irish, Britons and Norse, the Viking mercenary Egil Skallagrimsson extemporised a panegyric for the English and their king. Englaland is a stunning re-imagining of Skallagrimsson''s song, an unapologetic and paradoxical affirmation of a bloody, bloody-minded and bloody brilliant people. Danish huscarls, Falklands war heroes, pit-village bird-nesters, aging prize-fighters, flying pickets, jihadi suicide-bombers and singing yellowhammers parade through the book in an incendiary combination, rising to the challenge of the skald''s affirmation: you are the people in the land; know you are the people; know it is your land. Steve Ely lives in the Osgoldcross wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His first collection, Oswald''s Book of Hours , was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2013 and the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry in 2014.