Featured on BBC's
Newsnight Review
.
Mono-browed cousins, clandestine paperboys, murderous action heroes and Swiss euthanasia clinics jostle for position in Ross Sutherland's intelligent and wildly entertaining debut collection of poetry. Sutherland charts the never-ending urban excursions of Pac-Man; constructs mash-ups of celebrity obits; and dons a surgical mask to conduct an 'Experiment to Determine the Existence of Love'.
Things To Do Before You Leave Town
is a sharp, ambitious and blackly comic exploration of the end of things, where 'all the roads that lead out are really leading back in'. "In his free-wheeling lyricism, caustic wit and brilliantly surreal turn of image, Sutherland is a truly contemporary original. His poetry rejuvenates techniques as disparate as collage, memoir, sound experiment and formal appropriation in vigorous but finely wrought lines. Refreshingly fearless and bleakly funny,
collects works that shock and delight in performance but reveal their true depth on the page."
Luke Kennard "Ross Sutherland's poetry approaches the epic; a kind of epic on a human scale. If he were a piece of furniture, he would be an elegant high stool that felt uncomfortable and stylish at the same time."
Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3
Ross Sutherland
was born Edinburgh in 1979. A former lecturer in electronic literature at Liverpool John Moore's University, Ross now works as a freelance journalist and as a tutor in creative writing. He was one of
The Times
' Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008. Ross's poems have been published in
Rising
,
Reactions
Orbis
Mercy
Tears in the Fence
The Fix
and
NME
. He co-edited the new writing anthology
Rock/text
(Pen & Inc, 2002). A founding member of Aisle16, Ross has co-written eight live literature productions, including the critically acclaimed
Poetry Boyband
Found in Translation
. Ross makes regular appearances at Manchester Literature Festival, Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Glastonbury, Latitude Festival, Port Eliot Literary Festival and venues around the UK.