Wonder by Chris Emery
Salt
Published 3rd November 2025.
A collection about time, absence, and belonging In his fifth collection of poems, Chris Emery explores the nature of wonder in its various forms of awe, reflection, and the marvellous. The poems range from the absurd, to the historical, the comic and fantastical - dropping us into stories and places we never quite expect. The collection considers where and how we live: in the city, in the country, on the coast, or elsewhere - and the strange lives we endure in often disparate communities, connected to each other through history and nature, and sometimes separated by it. As with Emery's previous work, the poems reveal the intimate and fleeting in human experience, and can delve into the mundane, reverie or dreamscape, each lyric serving to illustrate the joy of common experience, all expressed in musical and arresting language that never avoids the freight of emotion. Praise for Previous Work "Emery instinctively knows that language can never be that precise and ambiguity lurks even in seemingly the most transparent utterance. In the best of the poems this "fuzziness' has been harnessed to marvellous effect.' ””James Sutherland-Smith "In the transformative effect of real poetry, the nest comes to be seen as a human life lived, "sad and gorgeously dented', but from which the creatures that made it have departed to another place: "to drone in apple acres / elsewhere darkening / with sweet ruin now.' Whether we believe in such a place - and the oxymoronic "sweet ruin' casts a shadowy doubt - is, with writing as good as this, hardly the point, appealing as it does, through vivid imagery, confidently written, to a fundamental human longing for continuation in the face of what we think we know of the end of life.' ””Martyn Crucefix "Poetry for contemplation with a strong sense of place.' ””Jackie Law, neverimitate "With this collection, as it follows Emery's own path, it may be that intuitions of spirituality in sacred spaces become the unthinkable that is experienced, shaped and shared.' ””Jonathan Evens, Tears in the Fence "Emery is adept at taking unexpected twists and turns, surprising and delighting us as, despite his chosen route, he somehow always leads us back home.' ””Rupert Loydell, International Times
A collection about time, absence, and belonging In his fifth collection of poems, Chris Emery explores the nature of wonder in its various forms of awe, reflection, and the marvellous. The poems range from the absurd, to the historical, the comic and fantastical - dropping us into stories and places we never quite expect. The collection considers where and how we live: in the city, in the country, on the coast, or elsewhere - and the strange lives we endure in often disparate communities, connected to each other through history and nature, and sometimes separated by it. As with Emery's previous work, the poems reveal the intimate and fleeting in human experience, and can delve into the mundane, reverie or dreamscape, each lyric serving to illustrate the joy of common experience, all expressed in musical and arresting language that never avoids the freight of emotion. Praise for Previous Work "Emery instinctively knows that language can never be that precise and ambiguity lurks even in seemingly the most transparent utterance. In the best of the poems this "fuzziness' has been harnessed to marvellous effect.' ””James Sutherland-Smith "In the transformative effect of real poetry, the nest comes to be seen as a human life lived, "sad and gorgeously dented', but from which the creatures that made it have departed to another place: "to drone in apple acres / elsewhere darkening / with sweet ruin now.' Whether we believe in such a place - and the oxymoronic "sweet ruin' casts a shadowy doubt - is, with writing as good as this, hardly the point, appealing as it does, through vivid imagery, confidently written, to a fundamental human longing for continuation in the face of what we think we know of the end of life.' ””Martyn Crucefix "Poetry for contemplation with a strong sense of place.' ””Jackie Law, neverimitate "With this collection, as it follows Emery's own path, it may be that intuitions of spirituality in sacred spaces become the unthinkable that is experienced, shaped and shared.' ””Jonathan Evens, Tears in the Fence "Emery is adept at taking unexpected twists and turns, surprising and delighting us as, despite his chosen route, he somehow always leads us back home.' ””Rupert Loydell, International Times
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