Description
Bye for Now – Lorraine Mariner
SOLD OUT
What’s great about editing The Rialto, or any poetry magazine, is the chance you give to the unexpected. The risk that reading through poet after poet, often good, or good enough, you can suddenly discover writing that is truly excellent. One such poet is Lorraine Mariner, who Carole Satyamurti calls “a modern day Stevie Smith”.
The poem that convinced me of her excellence is ‘In My Worst Moments’, which I think is one of the funniest and most skillfully written poems of the decade. Lorraine is another Rialto success story: her pamphlet Bye For Now resulted in a plethora of invitations to give readings and her full collection is coming out from Picador in 2009. The first printing of the pamphlet quickly sold out. We reprinted it and there are still a few copies remaining. Buy now as they’re sure to be Collectors’ Items when she’s thoroughly famous.
Michael Mackmin
Stanley
Yesterday evening I finished
with my imaginary boyfriend.
He knew what I was going to say
before I said it which was top of my list
of reasons why we should end it.
My other reasons were as follows:
He always does exactly what I tell him
Nothing in our relationship has ever surprised me
He has no second name.
He took it very well
all things considered.
He told me I was to think of him
as a friend and if ever I need him
I know where he is..
Author Biog
Lorraine Mariner was born in Essex in 1974 and read English at Huddersfield University, followed by Library and Information Studies at University College London. She lives in Upminster and currently works as a librarian at The Poetry Library on the South Bank.
Review
“Lorraine Mariner’s delightfully idiosyncratic poems are full of surprises. Consistently engaging and artfully improvised around the patterns of conversational speech, they are also – often when one least expects it – marked by a poignant tenderness. There’s a wise-child knowingness about these vivid scenarios of innocence and experience, of choice and its consequences. “I know now about the repercussions” says one of her speakers, but that never diminishes the meticulous relish with which this entertaining poet explores the situations which give rise to them.” John Mole
(The Rialto Bridge Pamphlet 2005)
ISBN 0-9527444-7-3 Price £5.50
