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Saint Billie

Saint Billie

by JeremyReed (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2002

    $12.01
Synopsis

Jeremy Reed's new collection centres on the legendary figure of the jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-59), 'Lady Day', whose talent propelled her from poverty in Baltimore to fame as a vocalist in Harlem nightclubs and international celebrity through her recordings with Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. But her life was scarred by personal tragedy and by the drug addiction that led to her premature death. From this dramatic material Reed creates a highly charged series of poems and prose pieces, some spoken by Billie herself, some by the poet as narrator, which brilliantly illuminate the singer's world and the heady atmosphere of the jazz age.

$12.01

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 64
 Publisher: Enitharmon Press
Published: 28 May 2002
ISBN 10: 1900564629
ISBN 13: 9781900564625

Media Reviews
'A supreme word-musician.' Adrian Mitchell'Brilliant unquiet mobilityA...subtle verbal intelligence, flashing with imaginative wit at once vivid and curiously cerebral.' Terry Eagleton'[He is] a supreme word-musician.' Adrian Mitchell'Brilliant unquiet mobilityA...subtle verbal intelligence, flashing with imaginative wit at once vivid and curiously cerebral.' Terry Eagleton'A...rich and careful writing, dense with pleasure in words that pleasure the world and waken us to its lovely surprises.' Seamus Heaney
Author Bio
Jeremy Reed was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, and read for his PhD at the University of Essex. He is widely acknowledged as the most imaginatively gifted British poet of his generation, praised by Seamus Heaney for his 'rich and careful writing' and by David Lodge for his 'remarkable lyric gift'. His Selected Poems were published by Penguin in 1987. Subsequent collections have been Nineties (Cape, 1990), Dicing for Pearls (1990), Pop Stars (1994), Sweet Sister Lyric (1996), Saint Billie (2001) and Duck and Sally Inside (2004), all from Enitharmon Press. He has also published Heartbreak Hotel (Orion, 2002), a verse biography of Elvis Presley.