Men Briefly Explained

by Tim Jones

Overview

Tim Jones' new collection holds men up to the light with poems that are intimate and playful, smart and satirical. He focuses on the rituals and carapaces of men and the relevance of that gender in the future. Men Briefly Explained is an engaging and provocative read.

- Mary McCallum, award-winning poet and novelist and curator of the Tuesday Poem website

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781921869327
Publisher:	IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)
Publication date:	07/19/2011
Pages:	74
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.18(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Tim Jones is a poet and author of both science fiction and literary fiction who was awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature in 2010. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

Among his recent books are fantasy novel Anarya's Secret (RedBrick, 2007), short story collection Transported (Vintage, 2008), and poetry anthology Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand (Interactive Press, 2009), co-edited with Mark Pirie. Voyagers won the "Best Collected Work" category in the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Awards.

Editorial Reviews

This latest collection finds Jones growing into a man. As a son, brother, friend, lover, husband and father these poems explore familiar sensations but combine a wry juxtaposition of good fortune with a bit of a bleak outlook. There are plenty of poems which are quietly devastating and really intimate.

Hamish Wyatt

Tim Jones' new collection holds men up to the light with poems that are intimate and playful, smart and satirical. He focuses on the rituals and carapaces of men and the relevance of that gender in the future. Men Briefly Explained is an engaging and provocative read.

Mary McCallum

Tim Jones's poetry is both worldly and other worldly. His lines form a clear and sharp insight into his own life and the lives of others. With a distinctive and fresh voice, his poems engage with the contemporary world, its environment, its human predicament, its politics, its illusions and its fantasies.

Mark Pirie

Men Briefly Explained delivers a unique, fast-paced, highly readable, sustained reflection on contemporary masculinity. Jones' poetry has an appealing personal, autobiographical quality that speaks to the heart as well as the head. Once I started to read I could not put it down.

Harvey Molloy

He writes with a blend of economy, humour and compassion that is rare in poetry, often finding the unexpected phrase – 'a diminuendo of corridors' – or an unusual, but exact, image – 'mountains piled like thunderheads' – to surprise and illuminate. This poetry is how New Women want their New Men to be – strong, sensitive and empathetic!

Kathleen Jones