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In his ambitious second full collection, Ross Sutherland is an uneasy observer of our age of inauthenticity, hacked computers and digital avatars. Emergency Window features new poems alongside excerpts from two recent sequences, including a hilarious and strangely prescient version of 'Little Red Riding Hood', a poem written using Google Streetview, sonnets inspired by the Street Fighter 2 video game, and a sequence of computer-generated translations of classic literature.
Surreal, funny, intelligent and experimental, these poems chart a search for meaning in a disintegrating world.
"If he were a piece of furniture, he would be an elegant high stool that felt uncomfortable and stylish at the same time."
Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3
"Sparky, surprising, joyous poetry"
Roddy Lumsden
Ross Sutherland was born in Edinburgh in 1979. His first collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town, was published by Penned in the Margins in 2009, followed by the limited-edition mini-book Twelve Nudes in 2010 and the free National Poetry Day e-book Hyakuretsu Kyaku in 2011. Ross regularly appears at the Aldeburgh, Manchester, Glastonbury and Latitude Festivals; he is taking his latest show, Comedian Dies in the Middle of Joke, to the Edinburgh Fringe 2012. He lives in Cambridge.
About the author
"At first glance, you might think that this entire book is a joke - more a parody of a writing journal than something to be tackled in earnest. And... well, yes, a lot of these exercises are ridiculous. They're over-specific, petulant, contradictory. If you want to describe them as parodies of writing advice, I'm pretty comfortable with that. However! In addition to being parodies, I mean every single one of them sincerely. I genuinely believe every single one of these exercises can teach us something about ourselves, about our relationship to language." - Ross Sutherland, Introduction
Summary
Welcome to a science fiction reality of mirrors, windows and menacing simulacra - where nothing is as it seems. In this ambitious and long-awaited second full collection, Sutherland interrogates the language of authenticity, presenting the poet as an anxious, disorientated collaborator trapped in a world of hacked computers and digital avatars.
