the book of gatherings - Mark Russell

“Announced by the strange geometries of its titles, Mark Russell’s new work has a runic, speculative quality. Each poem gives the sense of a chant or of a teased-out strand of verbal DNA. The whole work builds to a carved, resonant temple, conveying to us, if we could only quite grasp it, something in ourselves which is deeper and more ancient than we can recall.” Jonathan Catherall

“The Book of Gatherings is a sage, it feeds us sage advice then tells us to spit it out; we lose and find ourselves in the crowd; it is linguistically playful & politically pertinent. And as always with Mark Russell’s poetry, there is much sense to be found under bushels of non-sense.” Vicki Husband