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this is no longer entertainment (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019)

I am very pleased and excited to announce publication of my new book this is no longer entertainment.

The book is published by Manchester's Dostoyevsky Wannabe press on its Originals imprint. My thanks to Richard and Vikki at DW for making the book part of their very cool list, for their brilliant design work and their overall support.


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About the book:

this is no longer entertainment is formed entirely out of untreated anonymous or pseudonymous text found in the open comments sections of media websites and other digital platforms. It was composed by filtering this un-authored writing through a process of immediate, instinctive selection and reframing, which is inevitably modulated by the author’s interests and emotional temperature. The poem’s composition roughly covers the period 2014-2017; a period marked by a range of notable social-political shifts and events.

In its use of avant-garde compositional methods as parallels with experimental documentary filmmaking practices, this is no longer entertainment borrows from and extends the documentary poetry tradition. It is a poetic exploration of public-private language and multiple/shifting personas enabled by digital technologies and communication, and their effect on social discourse and the broader political climate. Cumulatively, the juxtapositions of the primary material consider mutual influences and intersections between themes like (mis)-information and error, the diffusion of authority, pop/celebrity culture, identity politics, the rise of nationalism, and others.


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The book is available to purchase on the Dostoyevsky Wannabe website.

If you're a bookshop/retailer and wish to stock the book, please see DW's retailer guide.

If you're a book reviewer, or a newspaper, journal, or magazine editor interested in commissioning a review, or for any press or other enquiries, please email your query here.

For festival, event or other bookings please contact me at the email address on the right.



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Excerpts from this is no longer entertainment have previously appeared as individual poems in the following journals and anthologies: some mark made, Poetry Ireland Review, Icarus Magazine, CORDA, Paris Lit Up, The Pickled Body, Studies in Arts and Humanities (SAH) Journal, Free Poetry Irish Anthology, Wretched Strangers, Hotel Magazine, The Tangerine.

A non-sequential 10-page selection from this book while in progress formed the text of my limited edition pamphlet if we keep drawing cartoons (If A Leaf Falls Press, 2016).

Thanks to all the editors and publishers.


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A series of launch / presentation events later in the year is currently in the works. Please look out for a relevant announcement.

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