GRAND TOUR POETRY
Can You Swim?
Paul Ibell’s latest collection takes its title from a poem which turns a swimming pool incident from his teenage years in Brussels into a metaphor for life. Taking Mother To The Hairdresser’s is a poignant account of a woman in old age, as is (though describing a total stranger, passed on a Mayfair street) Brief Encounter. Other poems are as varied as A Bad Hair Day - a darkly humorous fantasy about a mythological monster’s appearance on a Marylebone Street - and In The Morning, where a man trapped in a stale marriage yearns for his first girlfriend. The author of a highly praised biography of Tennessee Williams, in Taking Tennessee To The Coast Ibell imagines a group of fans liberating the writer’s body from an unwanted grave in St.Louis, for an ocean burial in the Gulf of Mexico. On this side of the Atlantic, Bosie in Brighton celebrates the redemptive power of art.
Passport
The poems in this volume are occasionally autobiographical and often about travel or abroad, hence the book’s title. Among these are Bahamas Undertow, The Purpose Of Your Visit? and Looking at the Seine. Paris also features in Oscar’s Last Room (where Paul Ibell stays in the hotel room in which Wilde died) and in Luggage, which sees the Duchess of Windsor leave her mansion in the Bois de Boulogne for yet another trans-Atlantic crossing to New York. English royalty features in Princess Margaret and Talking To The King, while St James’s Square is a poignant evocation of London in autumn.
Tennessee Williams
Paul’s biography of America’s greatest playwright looks at Tennessee Williams’s life through his work. Though he is best known for his plays, including A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Williams saw himself a poet - and is described as such on his tombstone.
This book is a concise, informative and highly readable account of an essentially tragic and deeply flawed life, together with the extraordinary talent that created some of the most poetic and powerful stage dramas of the 20th century - and many striking poems. Paul’s book shines a fresh light on this aspect of Tennessee’s writing, and has been recommended for students of Tennessee’s work.
"As well as being of interest to a general readership, the text might serve as a useful primer . . . because it surveys not only Williams's major plays but also a wide range of his lesser-known dramas, short stories, novellas and screenplays, and poems. The illustrations, which feature throughout, are a bonus. Ibell presents his arguments in a highly accessible manner, and the easy flow of his prose renders this critical biography an enjoyable introduction to one of the most important canonical figures in American theater history."
Journal of American Studies