Neurosurgery in Iraq

Rob Hindle’s compelling first collection ranges widely in both subject and approach. Whether occupying the chaotic insecurity and violence of Iraq, the contradictions of modern Spain, or the landscapes of personal territories, these poems collate images, voices and narratives around a number of important themes and oppositions: what fear can do, and love; the nature of displacement; the need for community and a shared identity.

There are acts of cruelty here, and desperation; there is also testimony to the randomness of destruction. A Sicilian village, high up on Etna, survives untouched by its ‘fires and spit’; whereas mortars drop indiscriminately on pilgrims in Karbala.

Rob Hindle is a Sheffield based poet.  His poetry and short fiction have appeared in several magazines including Iota, Staple, Dreamcatcher, Frogmore Papers and The North.  He has read at festivals and other events across Yorkshire and Derbyshire and he was Chair of the first Sheffield Poetry Festival in 2011.  In addition to his Templar publications, he has a pamphlet, The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman, published by Longbarrow Press (2009; re-issued 2012).  Yoke and Arrows, a dramatic poem-sequence about the death of Federico Garcia Lorca in 1936, is forthcoming (Smokestack Books, 2014).  His poetry blog is at http://robhindle.wordpress.com/

Available online here and in all good booksellers.

Format: Hardback