Bloodshot Monochrome
Patience Agbabi
Available as Paperback
New collection of poems by one of Britain’s Next Generation Poets
Bloodshot Monochrome is a glorious poetic take on all things black, white and read.
Reinventing the sonnet, Patience Agbabi shines her euphoric, musical lines on everything from growing up to growing old, from Northern Soul to contract killers, from the retro to the brand new. Whether resurrecting the dead in ‘Problem Pages’, playing out noir dramas in ‘Vicious Circle’, or capturing moments of her own life in perfect snapshot, Agbabi’s verse is sublimely lyrical and spiked with gleeful humour.
“Praise for Transformatrix:A rising star.”
observer
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“Thrilling. Has a multi-dimensional richness. It’s a bold, brassy work.”
independent On Sunday
“Draws on rap, jive and disco rhythms as much as the formal subtleties of free verse. Agbabi is a fine poet, and her linguistic wit carries satirical fire.”
daily Telegraph
“Combines cutting satire and outright celebration.”
big Issue
“[Patience Agbabi’s] love of the English language, and finding new ways she can subvert it, shines through. Honest, darkly funny and endlessly creative, she takes the sonnet, chats it up, tattoos it, gives it some motherly advice and then sends it away again.”
Claire Sawers
the List
Patience Agbabi
Patience Agbabi was born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents, but grew up in rural Wales with white foster parents. Featured on Channel 4 and renowned on the performance circuit, her debut collection R.A.W. won the 1997 Excelle Literary Award for poetry, and Transformatrix was highly critically acclaimed on publication in 2000. Her poems have appeared on radio and television all over the world.
