Late Gifts by Richard Price

Late Gifts is a joyful and anxious book. The eponymous late gift, this book's occasion, is a son, born to a middle-aged father. How does this change his sense of present and future, of time itself? The poet focuses on this demanding and joyful relationship in terms that are funny and re-energising, his world renewed.

The child's future makes more urgent environmental and politics themes that have long been a concern for the poet. Price, a versatile and experimental writer, develops new forms for his subject matter. The lyric investigates the visual disposition of the poem - the use of white spaces - and the possibilities of the prose poem.

This, Price's first collection in six years, is direct and idiomatic in style.

Carcanet