Books

Peckinpah Suite

Paul Munden checks into the suite of rooms in the Murray Hotel, Livingstone, Montana, once occupied by Sam Peckinpah, legendary director of The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and other notorious classics. For the poet, it is an act of homage and immersion, not without risk. Addressing Peckinpah directly, he reflects on the films—and the turmoil of their making—in poems both personal and finely attuned to Peckinpah’s own experience.

At the heart of the book is a vision of Peckinpah’s long-cherished but never realized project: Castaway. This more extensive piece bears witness to the director caught up in his own nightmarish script, a dark journey of self-discovery, shadowed by the poet. The overall Suite is a highly informed and structured work that wrestles with the nature of an uncompromising talent, revered yet often misunderstood.

Unclassified: Nigel Kennedy in Chapters & Verse

Nigel Kennedy is one of the world’s foremost violinists. His achievements have been met with great acclaim, not least his ability, both as performer and composer, to move across and blend an extraordinary range of musical genres and styles, resisting any notion of classification. Yet he remains a controversial figure, having rocked the classical music establishment with his radical innovations and uncompromising views.

Paul Munden has followed Nigel Kennedy’s musical journey for many years, and here sets down his reflections on everything he has gained from that experience. From a poet’s perspective, he writes about Kennedy’s extraordinary output, indeed the poetry of his playing. A sequence of chapters exploring various themes is interspersed with original poems, the idea deriving from Kennedy’s own improvised transitoires.

Limited edition hardback, 480pp, Recent Work Press, 2024

For all its eccentricity, this book – the first ever study of Nigel Kennedy’s exceptional talent – delves into complex questions: about the relationship between so-called genius and unconventional behaviour; the true purpose of education; the freedom of the interpreter; connections between music and poetry, music and sport; and the role of the artist as advocate of political and humanitarian causes.

This is a book that revels in the non-conformative nature of its subject, and the principle of living life with truly individual purpose. It speaks to fans and detractors alike; to musicians, both professional and amateur; also to the general, curious reader not only about music but a wealth of associated cultural issues.

‘I applaud Paul Munden’s take-away from Sterne: each should “tell their stories in their own way”. That’s an essential part of Kennedy’s unique contribution to music, and it reminds us that we should all aspire to the same personal authenticity.’ —David Owen Norris, pianist, composer & broadcaster

‘I truly believe Nigel to be a consummate musical genius, and Paul’s book confirms it.’
—Julia Palmer-Price, cellist (Hendrix tour, 1999)

‘Paul Munden brilliantly articulates the lyrical complexities of Kennedy’s music, and the poems that stud his narrative are a perfect complement.’ —Jen Webb, Centre for Creative & Cultural Research

Amplitude

Whether in the Venetian footsteps of Vivaldi, at the birth of the Owen and Sassoon violins or the scoring of a Sam Peckinpah film, these poems present a wealth of musical scenarios, all interconnected in their themes, tonality and form. Their reverberations reach across time and space, from England and Italy to the Australian outback, with the visual arts also in the mix. And yet the core of this book is deeply personal, the poet present as ten-year-old boy, lover, father, grandfather – or anachronistic witness – at the various trials of life through which creativity and even humour somehow flourish.

Recent Work Press, 2022

Read L’ Ospedale della Pietà from Amplitude

Chromatic

“The rich musicality of these poems speaks eloquently of beauty and love, both physical and transcendent. The darker harmonies are often brilliantly jittery in their interwoven and compulsive juxtapositions, accentuating the poems’ silences and apertures. In Chromatic, Munden unlocks the musical performance inside his poems, and the result is transportive and rapturous.” – Cassandra Atherton

Read ‘The Weathercock’, from Chromatic.

UWA Publishing, 2017. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £12

The Bulmer Murder

The title poem of this collection chronicles the eighteenth-century trial of Captain John Bolton for the murder of his apprentice girl, Elizabeth Rainbow, in a small village in the north of England where Paul Munden has spent most of his life. The poem’s reflection on the life writing process is complemented by other shadowings, glimpses of strange complicities and dark pastoral musings

Read ‘Tethered’, from The Bulmer Murder

Recent Work Press, 2017. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £12

Analogue/Digital: New & Selected Poems

Analogue/Digital brings together poems first published in Faber’s Poetry Introduction 7, and other anthologies and magazines mainly from the 1990s, with recent poems relating to travels – particularly in Australia. In between, there has been a switch from analogue to digital technologies, and this informs the selection, in which themes of loss, survival and changing horizons are reflected in the radical shift. Old and new worlds speak to each other, with their various means of recording the world – past and present – vying for attention.

Smith|Doorstop, 2015. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £12

Asterisk *

Asterisk is a sequence of poems inspired by Shandy Hall, the extraordinary house in Coxwold that was once home to the writer Laurence Sterne. The book is a personal interpretation of things Shandean, combined with photographs of the house and its garden.

Smith|Doorstop, 2011. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £14; hardback £20.

Henderskelfe

This book takes its title from the ancient Castle and village on whose site the present Castle Howard now stands. A close collaboration between photographer and poet has produced an entirely fresh view of the way in which architecture and landscape interact. The joint work was first exhibited at Castle Howard in the Spring of 1999.

Talking Shop, 1989. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £6

Keys

21 prose poems, written to the theme, as part of a five chapbook set, with Cassandra Atherton’s ‘Pegs’, Paul Hetherington’s ‘Jars’, Jen Webb’s ‘Gaps’ and Jordan Williams’ ‘Nets’. This first in the AUTHORISED THEFT series resulted from discussions connected to the Prose Poetry Project initiated by the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI), based at the University of Canberra. Design by Caren Florance.

Published by IPSI, 2015. Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £3

Fire

Another sequence of 21 prose poems, this time exploring Fire as one of the five Taoist Elements. Once again part of a five chapbook set published under the AUTHORISED THEFT imprint by IPSI, 2016.

Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £3

Orange

From the third AUTHORISED THEFT series, Colours, published by Recent Work Press, 2017.

I have appropriated stories from friends and family, (including those for whom orange is either a favourite or least liked colour) and mixed the details somewhat like mixing paint. Painterly concepts are at the fore, with my chosen colour sometimes a dominant tone, sometimes a small highlight.

Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £3

Rhyme

I have made increasing use of rhyme in my poetry generally, but exploring rhyme within these 21 prose poems represented an intriguing challenge. All of the poems continue the experiment I began in Orange, each poem consisting of a single, unfinished sentence, with the title as part of the whole.

Part of a five chapbook set: Prosody. Published under the AUTHORISED THEFT imprint by Recent Work Press, 2018.

Signed copy (inc. UK p&p) £3