The Hate Poems - Softcover

Tottenham, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1878923293 ISBN 13: 9781878923295

Publisher: Amok Books, 2018

Synopsis

John Tottenham writes poetry. But don’t hold that against him. It's the kind of poetry that is accessible to people who don't read poetry, i.e. everybody. This new collection, ‘The Hate Poems’, presents a further elaboration on the themes addressed in his two earlier volumes - ‘The Inertia Variations’ and ‘Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment’. In elegantly-wrought laments of self-deprecation and hateful love poems, the author finds that he has more to say on already exhausted subjects, and gives voice to the kind of thoughts most people prefer not to express but will automatically relate to and be entertained by. Poets are doomed, among other fates, to repeating themselves. Another potential fate is to be consigned to a world of embittered obscurity, and this is the world that Tottenham restlessly inhabits and relentlessly explores. He has staked out a singular terrain where egotism and self-loathing meet, where futility merges with urgency, and beauty is created out of bitterness. He furnishes mesmerizing proof that a poet maudit can still, if not thrive, at least survive, alive and unwell, in this benighted age, and that the dregs can sometimes be the cream.

About this title

About the Author

After many years of resistance, John Tottenham finally sold out to the lucrative, fast-paced world of poetry. He is the author of ‘The Inertia Variations’, an epic poetic cycle on the subject of work-avoidance, indolence and failure (a multi-media interpretation of this work by English musician Matt Johnson, otherwise known as The The, was released in 2017), His work has been described as “magnanimous misanthropy,” “magical cynicism,” and “an acquired taste that’s for everybody.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Broke, bitter and alone.

What more could I possibly ask for?

I have failed, at last,

beyond my wildest expectations.

I don’t understand

why I’m still not satisfied.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,

but I wish I’d never met you.

This union has neutered, infantilized,

and smothered the remaining life out of me.

You have inspired me

to shut myself down in so many ways;

you have killed my sense of wonder,

and I love you for it.

It took all these years to figure out

that I’m not suited for relationships.

Great: Now I can spend my old age alone

and die a lonely death.

After a long stretch of being

one half of a couple, one half of myself,

a sour thirst for a satisfying revulsion

renews itself.

From now on I’m going to be a shadow

of my former shadow:

Living in the present, negligibly,

and regretting the past, sweepingly.

Darling, please don’t let our love ever die.

Because if it does, I’ll be shattered

by all the time I’ve wasted

keeping it alive.

I might have done more had others done less,

had I not been thwarted by the unsightly spectacle

of other people’s success.

 I felt satisfied.

It was an unfamiliar

and unsatisfying sensation.

I wanted it to end.

And it soon did.

About this edition

• Publisher: Amok Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1878923293
• ISBN 13: 9781878923295
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 80