Slowing Ride

Will Stone is an English-born European poet who reclaims his role as a cerebral journeyman, exploring history, personalities, cultures, and landscapes. His work is characterized by its rare species, an English-born European poet conjuring extraordinary visions of beauty and despair, joy and horror, revelation and nostalgia. Stone's images show his greatest poetic skill, moving masterfully between the pastoral and the urban, the ancient and the modern, the religious and the profane. The Sleepwalkers is a challenging, but necessary reading experience, showcasing a vitally European poet of tremendous intellectual, historical, and emotional range.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 80 pages
Publication date: 16 October 2020
Publisher: Shearsman Books

In his latest collection, The Slowing Ride, Will Stone reclaims his role as a cerebral journeyman, an inveterate trawler of history, both recent and far distant. He moves back and forth between epochs and events, between personalities, cultures, and landscapes, leaving behind delicate silken threads of suggestion, salvaging what remains of the humanistic in delineating the replicating tragedies and punishments endured by the fallen and the uncomprehending, those who unknowingly share a non-linear time.

Like its predecessors, The Slowing Ride reintroduces that rare species, an English-born European poet conjuring extraordinary visions of beauty and despair, joy and horror, revelation and nostalgia. Stone's work is undeniably the real thing, a testament to his talent and dedication to the craft.

Comments on previous collections: Stone's landscapes hum with mesmerising, motionless interiority, his language hints at the consolation of pattern, and though the mood of these poems is dark, there are, as in that fir forest, shafts of light. -Kate Bingham, Poetry Review

It is in his images that Stone shows his greatest poetic skill; he moves masterfully between the pastoral and the urban, the ancient and the modern, the religious and the profane. The effectiveness of the images remains constant throughout, and it is this effortless versatility that prevents the grim reality of the poetry's subject matter from desensitizing the reader to its darkness over the course of the collection.

While Will Stone cannot deny the certainty of another century of darkness, the century that he yearns for is a brighter one altogether, and this tension makes The Sleepwalkers a compelling collection. -Ludo Cinelli, The London Magazine

This collection is a challenging, but necessary reading experience and showcases a vitally European poet of tremendous intellect. Stone's ability to navigate the complexities of history, culture, and personal experience is a testament to his talent and his commitment to the art of poetry. The Slowing Ride is a testament to his enduring legacy as a poet of our time.

Weight: 122g
Dimension: 140 x 216 x 11 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781848617162