Not a Moment Too Soon
Scottish Arts Council Book Award 1984, 1997
McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year 1995
Creative Scotland Award 2003
Frank Kuppner's new (eleventh) book consists of three long, hilarious, philosophical, existential sequences, "The Liberating Vertigo of a Final Passage of Meaning", "Not Quite the Greatest Story Never Told" and "Not Quite a False Fresh Start Either". Those 'not quites' are a keynote – what might have been and what actually is, the gap between being the space of the poem, its ironies, humour and wry heartbreak. The poems in the sequences are short, reminding us of his first book, "A Bad Day for the Sung Dynasty", where short 'orientalising' forms were first perfected. 216 poems through the second sequence, he interrupts himself with, "[I have almost said enough"]. But that's just short of the half of it.
"Points weaved together / to make myself" – these are the points of each poem, haiku or tanka or something else, the weave being uneven and richly suggestive. Words fill out unexpectedly, the ubiquitous Stars become Sta[i]rs. His subject matter is what lies beyond the window of his rented rooms. The world is an erotic and philosophical minefield. He is rather too fitful and feverish to relish it for what it is, what it might be or even what it might have been.
McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year 1995
Creative Scotland Award 2003
Frank Kuppner's new (eleventh) book consists of three long, hilarious, philosophical, existential sequences, "The Liberating Vertigo of a Final Passage of Meaning", "Not Quite the Greatest Story Never Told" and "Not Quite a False Fresh Start Either". Those 'not quites' are a keynote – what might have been and what actually is, the gap between being the space of the poem, its ironies, humour and wry heartbreak. The poems in the sequences are short, reminding us of his first book, "A Bad Day for the Sung Dynasty", where short 'orientalising' forms were first perfected. 216 poems through the second sequence, he interrupts himself with, "[I have almost said enough"]. But that's just short of the half of it.
"Points weaved together / to make myself" – these are the points of each poem, haiku or tanka or something else, the weave being uneven and richly suggestive. Words fill out unexpectedly, the ubiquitous Stars become Sta[i]rs. His subject matter is what lies beyond the window of his rented rooms. The world is an erotic and philosophical minefield. He is rather too fitful and feverish to relish it for what it is, what it might be or even what it might have been.
About the author
Frank Kuppner was born in Glasgow in 1951. He has been Writer in Residence at the universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde and Glasgow. In 1995 he won the McVitie's Scottish Writer of the Year prize for for his book Something Very Like Murder. He received a Creative Scotland Award in 2003. Carcanet have published six books of his poetry: "A Bad Day for the Sung Dynasty" (Scottish Arts Council Book Award, 1984), "The Intelligent Observation of Naked Women" (1987), "Ridiculous! Absurd! Disgusting!" (1989), "Everything is Strange" (1994), "Second Best Moments in Chinese History" (1997) and "What? Again? Selected Poems" (2000).