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| Photo of Ian Seed by Jonathan Bean |
PUBLICATIONS
Threadbare Fables, a chapbook of short fictions, is now out from Like This Press. Two pieces from the collection, 'Trick' & 'Bright and Early', can be found here in The Cafe Irreal.
'They extend the force of Jacob's Le Cornet à dés beautifully
into today's urban sphere' —John Ashbery. 'These are intriguing poems that are told in sharp, confident and confined prose. Each
is tightly written. The games being played here are not the kinds of games you might expect to be played in poetry—the
artfulness of the writing is hidden, but no less artful for that.' —Trevor McCandless, Sphinx. 'First things first—don’t waste time trying to decide whether Ian
Seed’s mysterious, pared-down narratives are prose poems or flash fiction or some other form you’ve not heard
of yet. For that matter, don’t worry about whether or not they’re strictly fables, either. There are no neat moral
lessons to be learned. They are fabulous, though, in every sense of the word.' —Matt Merritt, Sphinx. Full Sphinx reviews available here. 'Not exactly funny, but I smiled when I read it nevertheless'—Martin Stannard, Stride. See full Stride review here. 'These prose pieces, unadorned by simile or metaphor, are all the more thought-provoking
for their simplicity of language and anonymous setting'—Afric
McGlinchey, Sabotage Reviews. See full review here. ' Threadbare
Fables appeals not because of its sexual suggestiveness but because of the humour that takes us further into its possibilities'
—Mike Ferguson. See full review, and a comparison with Fifty Shades
of Grey, here.
My second full-length collection, Shifting Registers, was published by Shearsman in April 2011. Details
can be found here on the publisher website.
Excerpts from reviews of Shifting Registers:
'The mystery and sadness of empty rooms, chance encounters in the street,
trains traveling through a landscape of snow become magical in Ian Seed's poems...' —John Ashbery (back cover).
'There is something in Ian Seed’s poems of the atmosphere of [De Chirico's] vast, empty plazas, something
of their dream-like stillness & otherness, their brooding, uninterrogated menace. But there’s a real enthusiasm
and delight in here as well, an unforced pleasure in pushing at the language to open up new spaces and cast new light on the
kaleidoscopic fragments of our experience' —C.J. Allen, Litter. See full review here.
'A hazy lyrical ambiance jostles with a more abstract, mathematical quality [...] endlessly
elusive yet filled with charm and promise' — Steve Spence, Stride magazine.
'The disfigured face and the beloved face, for Seed, are one'— Virginia Konchan,
Intercapillary Space. See full review here.
'....there’s
literature of value here, ideas worth rolling around in the tired grey matter upstairs; bringing both light and shadow, blending
them, making you nervous' — Joe Downes, Lancaster In Review.
'
Journeys haunt this collection of poems [...] Ian Seed allows the reader a glimpse of what is already gone, a return to what
is no longer there, a teasing echo'' — Ian Brinton, Tears in the Fence.
My first
full-length collection of poems, Anonymous Intruder, was published by Shearsman in 2009.
Excerpts
from reviews of Anonymous Intruder : 'These
poems and prose poems are full of atmosphere, fractured stories and suggestive directions' —Steven Waling, The North.
'...the voices and landscapes
in Anonymous Intruder are both elusive and yet hauntingly present' —Paul Wright, Writing in Education.
'...beauty, in Seed’s
debut, never loses its power, and is everywhere pressing, active' —Virginia Konchan, Jacket Magazine.
'The movement
of the book and of its constituent pieces is towards the music and the light, and away from the apparent security of the
closed, the static and the fossilised' —Peter Hughes, Intercapillary Space.
'I keep returning
to this text, and I feel that these are poems I'll live with over time, which is a good recommendation for any book'
— Alan
Baker, Litter.
'The Anonymous Intruder is a marvellous masterly book of poems' — Rupert Mallin,
textVISUAL.
'The feeling of being seduced into taking a series of atoms as a whole is strangely pleasurable'
— Tony
Williams.
Some complete reviews can be found at the links below:
JacketIntercapillary SpaceRupert MallinLeafe PressStrideTony Williams
Poems, fiction, reviews and translations (from French,
Italian and Polish) have appeared in such publications as The Argotist Online, Blackbox Manifold, The Bow-Wow Shop, The
Cafe Irreal, Dream Catcher, Dwang, Fin, Foam:e, Flash: The International Short-Short Story
Magazine, Flax (Lancaster litfest), Free Verse, Great Works, Litter, The North, nth position,
The Penniless Press, Pinstripe Fedora, PN Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, Ragged Edge, Sentence,
Shearsman, Stride, textVISUAL, Tears in the Fence and Word f/word. Other work:
Amore mio, a
short story is published by Flax as a Kindle Ebook. It can be purchased here.
‘A deft, honest and sometime uncomfortable story of a
relationship growing beyond its first flush. Ian Seed conveys disappointment and betrayal in a compulsive story that is sharp,
dry and perfectly shaped. I wanted to look away, but needed to know what was going to happen. A beautifully balanced, compassionate
short story' —Sarah Hymas.
'Ian Seed has put together a beautiful story. In a few pages he sums
up the nature of relationships: falling in love, betrayal, sexual desire. They are all here in a setting so real you can
smell the fresh coffee and feel the sand under your feet. It is paced fast enough to pull you along but detailed enough
to to add depth. And the characterisation is excellent.'—Ian Chapman, Amazon.
the straw which comes apart, a translation from the poems
of Ivano Fermini, is published by Oystercatcher Press. Click here A more experimental work, Sleeping
with the Ice Cream Vendor, is out from Knives Forks and Spoons Press. To find out more, click here.
'This book unfolds landscapes akin to Wallace
Stevens' snow man, if that snow man had a body of skin being unpeeled' —Lisa Samuels'These are poems to return to, to puzzle over, to think about and possibly to dream about - the images are
so focussed and yet so shifting [...] I continue to be intrigued by his poetry and enjoy grappling with its delicate complexity.'—Steve Spence, Stride. See full review here. 'These 40-odd pages of poems often reach into difficult human places...This is a rich & involving collection with a slow-burning emotional charge at its core.'—C.J. Allen,
Litter.
My writing is included in: This Line is Not for
Turning: An Anthology of British Prose Poetry, edited by Jane Monsoon (Cinnamon
Press, 2011); Entanglements: New Ecopoetry,
edited by David Knowles & Sharon Blackie (Two
Ravens Press, 2012); Sea Pie: An Anthology of Oystercatcher Poetry (edited by Peter Hughes,
Shearsman, 2012); and The Tower of Babel, edited by Rupert M Loyell (Like This Press, 2013).
I am a member of the Sixfold Poet group.
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