The Shores of Vaikus

By Philip Gross

In this edgy homage to Estonia, the country of his refugee father's birth, T S Eliot Prizewinner Philip Gross continues to develop the subtle conversation between words and silence that is at the core of his poetry.

At this collection's heart, the shapeshifting prose-poem monologues of this book's central sequence, Evi And The Devil, weave a haunted landscape out of folktale, dark humour, the routine atrocities of history and a vividly present sense of place. The island of Vaikus (one of several words for silence in Estonian) is Estonia condensed, refracted in the dark waters of a bog pool. The voice that speaks with such compelling otherness is a channelling of a culture and a disposition often drowned out in successive occupations by the empires of the day, but always alive, and whispering. The resulting book is both a bold departure and a drawing together of the whole range of a writing life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1780377177
• ISBN13: 9781780377179
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.4"