Neptune Blue

`Neptune Blue’ opens outside the galaxy and quickly zooms into a computer-generated Paris, dancing past the planets as it goes. With poems that fizz with wit and invention, Simon Barraclough’s new collection bursts with crazy hearts and boisterous planets. What do Neptune, Derek Jarman and Edwin Morgan have in common and is Saturn really the undisputed supermodel of the solar system? And with over sixty moons, do its werewolves ever get a night off? If you based a whole new meteorological season on a slippery pool hustler from `The Color of Money’, how would such a season feel? Is there money to be made in privatising snow? From the Sun to Pluto; from baby sharks in Miami to the forlorn dogs of Sri Lanka and the unlucky settlers of the imaginary Island of Schalansky; `Neptune Blue’ sees Barraclough at his most playful and musical, dishing up a feast for the eyes, the ears, the heart and the mind.