About this ebook
'But back to the summer day the spike
grazed my brother's scalp: I slept beside him
in his racing car bed and my father woke me
and slapped my face, thinking, I assume, of sex,
whereas I was already thinking about death.'
Urban, suburban, sharply observant, now obsessive and now urbane, the poems in Kathryn Maris's third book range with a dry wit over such subjects as parenthood, marriage, adultery, the politics of children's sports contests, female prison and psychoanalysis. The House with Only an Attic and a Basement is that rare thing: a darkly funny collection of poems that courses with keen intelligence, yet wears its learning lightly so that it is a pleasure to stride along with every poem.
grazed my brother's scalp: I slept beside him
in his racing car bed and my father woke me
and slapped my face, thinking, I assume, of sex,
whereas I was already thinking about death.'
Urban, suburban, sharply observant, now obsessive and now urbane, the poems in Kathryn Maris's third book range with a dry wit over such subjects as parenthood, marriage, adultery, the politics of children's sports contests, female prison and psychoanalysis. The House with Only an Attic and a Basement is that rare thing: a darkly funny collection of poems that courses with keen intelligence, yet wears its learning lightly so that it is a pleasure to stride along with every poem.
About the author
Kathryn Maris is originally from New York and has lived in London since 1999. Her previous collections are The Book of Jobs (Four Way Books, 2006) and God Loves You (Seren, 2013), and a selection of her poetry appeared alongside the work of Frederick Seidel and Sam Riviere in Penguin Modern Poets 5: Occasional Wild Parties (2017). Her poetry has been published widely, including in Granta, The Nation, The New Statesman, Poetry, The Best British Poetry 2015 (Salt) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 (Faber & Faber).
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