Parker, Bobby

Longing is the Grace

ISBN: 9781910691878
London, England, UK: Tangerine Press, 2023. Numbered Limited Edition. Stapled Wrappers. “I often wonder if my gentle nature comes from those arch, leftfield ancestors who vowed to end the hand-me-down cycle of abuse and neglect. I like to think they hacked away at the branches of working class violence, buying time against the rot. I believe this was a conscious decision. Something brutal enlightened them. Because of their courage my blood was exquisitely filtered. The truth is closer to a vintage ashtray, clock-style, heavy crystal, stinking up the house. A relic from my earthy orange childhood, crammed with curled up dog-ends. They lit up indoors back then. Pale kids slapped the yellow dust out of the cushions. I must've smoked a hundred fags by the time I was two, puffing on my Hindenburg inhaler in a spooky terraced house. Parents in the 80s didn't give a fuck. Dads in double-denim cursed our mothers and their ugly tattoos. We stood on tippy toes to watch them through the pub window, circling each other like injured sharks in a filthy aquarium. My old man's favourite thing to do was break me. He would get me sloppy drunk and whisper in my ear what a terrible son I was, until I broke down sobbing in front of everyone. My growth chart was measured in pocket knife scratches, inching up the bar. After the smoking ban, a lot of pubs went out of business. The new ones are too clean, too much light, it's brighter now, and we can see each other's scars. What does it feel like to be the one who breaks the cycle? How much time do you have?” (“Longing is the Grace”). As the reader may well have intuited from the from the prose-poetic rumination above, Bobby Parker’s Longing is the Grace is a stunning short collection from Bobby Parker, “a self-taught writer and visual artist who grew up and currently lives in Kidderminster, West Midlands. Published widely in magazines in print and on-line [sic], his debut poetry collection Blue Movie (Nine Arches Press) was published in 2014, followed by Working Class Voodoo (Offord Road Books) in 2018, and Honey Monster (Broken Sleep Books) in 2022.” While we at TMB first befriended the great Tangerine Press on grounds relating to our specialty (Mid-Century American literature, broadly-speaking), Tangerine continues to astonish with their promotion of contemporary authors who are “making it new” in the grand old tradition of our forebears. Yet another excellent & inventive offering by Michael Curran’s Tangerine Press. Chapbook in stapled wrappers: “A limited edition of 53 numbered & signed copies, / handbound by the Tangerine Press of New Malden. / Design by Michael Curran. This is copy: / 22,” as stated at colophon [with limitation in thin red felt pen ink]. Parker’s signature on title page near leftmost fine edge at interior (in thin, black pen ink), reads: “Bobby Parker.” In very fine condition, virtually as new, with only slightest shelf-wear & light bumping. Very Fine. [Item #6285]

Price: $40.00