19 Paternosters

Picking up a key thread from his debut pamphlet, 19 Paternosters continues Martin Malone’s exploration of the potential for an adequate and nuanced expression of post-millennial manhood. Constructed around varying tropes of the central male function of fatherhood, he once more holds up masculinity to the murky light of contemporary life and living memory. The “oldest voice” is given its modern idiom to articulate both the much that has been taken and that which yet remains of male possibility: rueful tenderness, loss, grief, memory, wise counsel and a sincere attempt to do the maths with “The stupid sums that men do”. “This is a strong and distinctive new voice, with a rare ability to change pace and angle, to surprise the reader.” MICHAEL SYMMONS ROBERTS “His poems are bold in subject and in style; his voice never murmurous but full-throated and confident.” JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT