O Positive: Poetry

O Positive is the long-awaited debut collection of poetry from Joe Dunthorne, and it has all the appeal of his widely acclaimed fiction.

Adopting a sunny, genial tone, Dunthorne lures the listener to darker places, exploring death and dread, failure and regret amp;mdash; the 'lounge of our suffering'. Often, he catches us off-guard: a 'whiplash' effect where poems shift from laughter to slaughter in a moment. Impertinent owls, an immersive theatre troupe, ancient men from the Great War and idiot balloonists amp;mdash; such characters dramatise our human fancies and foibles, joining the protagonist in scenarios both humorously bizarre and all too familiar.

These performances serve to probe and unpeel the layers of the self amp;mdash; all the way down to the raw.