{"product_id":"jug-band-jag-9781780377636","title":"Jug Band Jag","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLovers of Kit Wright's poetry - for its range and virtuosity, deep feeling and rich humour - may find his new gathering exceeds expectations.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cem\u003e Jug Band Jag\u003c\/em\u003e is a wonderfully spirited bout of poetry-making whose forms and themes are markedly diverse, while the concern for musicality is constant. Whether, that is, he is dispensing the low-down on the Gunpowder Plot, or a ghost story from the world of dry-cleaning, or a fairy tale about ox tongue; reflecting on Hitler as artist, or tracing the frustrations of a career mafioso.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe gives a detailed and moving account of the sinking of the SS \u003cem\u003ePersia\u003c\/em\u003e during the First World War, in which his own grandmother and her baby were drowned, and traces the curious history of a small Kentish coastal town. A retired classics teacher sings the rivers of hell and of course, a Deep South jug band renders the blues.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eKit Wright's vision of the world blends the sharply realistic with a distinctive brand of surrealism. Whatever his subject and the tune that he has found for it, these new poems are linked by the quicksilver of irony and the river of humanity that runs through them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKit Wright\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1944 in Crookham Hill, Kent, and has published over 25 books for adults and children. After a scholarship to Oxford, he worked as a lecturer in Canada, was education officer at the Poetry Society from 1970 to 1975, Fellow Commoner in Creative Art at Cambridge University in 1977-79, and subsequently a freelance writer. His poetry titles include \u003ci\u003eThe Bear Looked Over the Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e (Salamander, 1977), \u003ci\u003eBump-Starting the Hearse \u003c\/i\u003e(Hutchinson, 1983), \u003ci\u003ePoems 1974-1983\u003c\/i\u003e (Hutchinson, 1988), \u003ci\u003eShort Afternoons\u003c\/i\u003e (Hutchinson, 1989), \u003ci\u003eHoping It Might Be So: Poems 1974-2000\u003c\/i\u003e (Leviathan, 2000; Faber, 2008), \u003ci\u003eOde to Didcot Power Station\u003c\/i\u003e (Bloodaxe Books, 2014) and \u003ci\u003eJug Band Jag\u003c\/i\u003e (Bloodaxe Books, 2025). He has won many literary awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, Hawthornden Prize, Heinemann Award and Cholmondeley Award.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloodaxe Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51834693058834,"sku":"9781780377636","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2a858f67-bd7c-4987-92d4-b3514ee741cb.jpg?v=1767100844","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/jug-band-jag-9781780377636","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}