On the Beach with Chet Baker

"Presence and absence, some sort of together" ('On the Beach with Chet Baker').These are the three places that Robert Seatter's second book of poems explores, with deftness, insight and artistry. They move from places of stasis and memory, through the uneasy proximities of love captured in the moody jazz trumpet of the title poem, and out to the uncharted spaces that loss and death can create. His arresting imagination is equally at home with the songs of Elvis Costello and Jacques Brel, a bizarre collection of BBC sound effects, Shakespeare's most famous stage direction or the films of Fellini and Marilyn Monroe, right down to the more mundane details of a bad day at the computer, garden bonfires or the texture of toast...Subtle, artful, intimate, these are appealing poems from a writer whose work is a flowering of his early promise. "Seatter writes sometimes with tremendous momentum which capture the thrill of a particular moment when life was lived with breathtaking intensity"PlanetAfter studying English at Oxford University, Robert Seatter worked variously as an EFL teacher in Italy and France, an actor, a journalist, in publishing and broadcasting. He lives in London where he now works for the BBC. His poetry has been widely published, has won numerous awards and has been featured on radio, television and London buses.