Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for If All the World and Love Were Young by Stephen Sexton and published by Penguin.
About the Book
When Stephen Sexton was young, video games were a way to slip through the looking glass; to be in two places at once; to be two people at once. In these poems about the death of his mother, this moving, otherworldly narrative takes us through the levels of Super Mario World, whose flowered landscapes bleed into our world, and ours, strange with loss, bleed into it. His remarkable debut is a daring exploration of memory, grief and the necessity of the unreal.
About the Author
Author Photo
Stephen Sexton lives in Belfast. His poems have appeared in Granta, POETRY, and Best British Poetry 2015. His pamphlet, Oils, was the Poetry Book Society’s Winter Pamphlet Choice. He was the winner of the 2016 National Poetry Competition, the recipient of an ACES award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2018.
My Review
Sometimes a way of coping with events in the real world is to head back to the things that gave you comfort in the past. For Stephen Sexton this means heading to the world of Super Mario Kart, where he spent lots of his youth racing against the characters in this colourful and larger than life world. It was a place that infused his reality and gave him lots of happy memories to look back on.
It is this nostalgic place that he returns to in this book frequently as the poems take us through the various tracks and characters in the game. The fun though is short-lived, because all the way through, he has the agony of watching his mothers illness develop to the point where it finally claimed her.
For a collection of poems that leans heavily on gamer references about a fun thing to play, it is heavily draped with sorrow and grief. I liked the way that he varied the pace and structure of the poems, and having those two themes running all the way through, it builds into a narrative thread and feels like we are sharing his grief. Definitely one to read again one day.
Three Favourite Poems
Donut Plains 1
Chocolate Secret
#7 Larry’s Castle
Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour and have a look at the website to discover all the other books that have been longlisted.
You can buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here. They might not be open at the moment, but may be able to send you a copy.
My thanks to Martina at Midas PR for the copy of the book to read.
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