Requiem For A Typewriter

Moss Rich

This collection, spanning 1977 - 1997 is Pighog Press’ tribute to Moss Rich’s remarkable life and work. The poems were nearly all written to be read aloud, and what sets them apart is their combination of exuberant rhythmic bounce and often sarcastic sense of difference from social mores and the logic of capital. The narrator of 'Devaluation - the Human Reality' wryly observes that the dentist is filling a hole in his 'socket / with pounds from my pocket'. 'The National Cat Show' meanwhile, witheringly describes meeting the eye of a 'heart-stopper' specimen of 'British Moggidom' across a crowded exhibition hall.

But for all his pithy critique Rich is clearly a man of big heart and tender emotions often sit side by side with satire. 'The Art of Grief', for example, questions the sincerity of the mason’s art, a 'renewable stock of grief', but also contains the lines, 'If print speaks as gently to your heart as blood flows softly / through your veins you will understand why I stop to read' - poignant and thought-provoking. 'The Orkneys' is written to 'a friend who went there to paint', and insightfully contrasts the 'brush-touch of tenderness' with the violence of the ocean, and those remote islands’ history of invasion by the Vikings.

This tender, wise-cracking collection provides an excellent overview of the remarkable Rich’s life and work and makes for richly rewarding reading.

ISBN 0-9542443-4-6
£6 plus £4 p&p