81 Austerities

Sam Riviere

ISBN 10: 0571289037 / ISBN 13: 9780571289035

Published by Faber & Faber, 2012

About this Item

Seller Inventory # U9780571289035

Bibliographic Details

• Title: 81 Austerities
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0571289037
• ISBN 13: 9780571289035
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1776777881.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: 15599154
• Signed: 4/21/2026 1:24:41 PM
• Seller catalogs:
  • 1
  • U
  • 9780571289035

About this title

Synopsis

All three-dimensional objects can be experienced in two dimensions: it just takes some careful unpicking of the seams. Witty, comic, plaintive, touching, acerbic, droll, cavalier, caffeinated, irreverent, stringent: Austerities, the mind-altering substantial debut from Sam Riviere, seems to achieve the impossible in being all things at once. Initially conceived as a response to the ''austerity measures'' implemented by the coalition government in 2011, the poems quickly began taking on a life in kind: ''cutting'' themselves on levels of sentiment, structure and even subject matter. Not content to merely build a series of freethinking poems, these remarkable pieces seem eagerly and mischievously to analyze their moment of creation, then weigh their worth, then consign their excess to the recycling bin thereafter. Experience is speedy, the poems seem to say, so dizzyingly fast that the poetry will inevitably be running to catch up - often arriving at a scene the moment after the moment has gone. The effect is as funny and it is startling, beguiling as it is surprising, and makes Austerities a vivid reminder that deprivation, as Leonard Cohen put it, can be the mother of poetry.

About the Author

Sam Riviere began to write poetry while at the Norwich School of Art and Design, and completed a Masters at Royal Holloway. His poems have appeared in various publications and competitions since 2005. He co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives, and is currently working towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia. He was a recipient of a 2009 Eric Gregory Award.