Poetry
To date, Seán Street has published 14 collections of his poems. These are:
Poems of Earth and Sky (1976)
Figure in a Landscape (1980)
Carvings (1982)
A Walk in Winter (1989)
This True Making (1992)
Radio and Other Poems (1999)
Radio Waves, poems celebrating the Wireless (2004)
Time Between Tides: New and Selected Poems 1981-2009 (2009)
Cello (2013)
Jazz Time (2014)
Camera Obscura (2016)
Talk, Radio: Poems of Transmission (2017)
The Sound Recordist (2021)
Journey Into Space (2023)Comments
“Camera Obscura
A visionary book...extraordinary in its range and versatility.
Tears in the Fence, Winter/Spring, 2017”
A visionary book...extraordinary in its range and versatility.
Tears in the Fence, Winter/Spring, 2017”
“Camera Obcura
This highly accomplished collection...rings with music and sound
PN Review, December 2016”
This highly accomplished collection...rings with music and sound
PN Review, December 2016”
“Cello
Street's language - always vibrant and tuned - feels akin to water in the way it flows into crevices of meaning, dips beneath, seeking and searching beyond 'the prose of the physical'.
Fiona Owen, 'Tears in the Fence', Spring 2016”
Street's language - always vibrant and tuned - feels akin to water in the way it flows into crevices of meaning, dips beneath, seeking and searching beyond 'the prose of the physical'.
Fiona Owen, 'Tears in the Fence', Spring 2016”
“Camera Obcura
Poems from the edge of another dimension, looking over that edge to send back insights into the spiritual, the past-temporal, the post-temporal. The range of voice has expanded, using the local to address the universal and the mortal with a confident, open heart. Moving and informed, the uncertain, stubborn courage of age shines through.
Michael Curtis”
Poems from the edge of another dimension, looking over that edge to send back insights into the spiritual, the past-temporal, the post-temporal. The range of voice has expanded, using the local to address the universal and the mortal with a confident, open heart. Moving and informed, the uncertain, stubborn courage of age shines through.
Michael Curtis”
“Jazz Time
Seán Street's Jazz Time is one of his most concentrated collections, a genuine investigation into how we all improvise our lives (and in so doing, discover who we really are).
Nick Buchanan, author of 'What Happens in Shakespeare's King Lear'”
Seán Street's Jazz Time is one of his most concentrated collections, a genuine investigation into how we all improvise our lives (and in so doing, discover who we really are).
Nick Buchanan, author of 'What Happens in Shakespeare's King Lear'”
“Jazz Time
In this collection, music has worked on Street's imagination to create what really are short stories – but stories which are themselves musical. And those stories are moving, joyful and tragic.
Julian May”
In this collection, music has worked on Street's imagination to create what really are short stories – but stories which are themselves musical. And those stories are moving, joyful and tragic.
Julian May”
“Cello
Muscular syntax, observed silences, arresting moments that blur the boundaries. Altogether transcending.
Michael Curtis”
Muscular syntax, observed silences, arresting moments that blur the boundaries. Altogether transcending.
Michael Curtis”
“Cello
By some way, Seán Street's most ambitious collection...pushing thought to the edge of the sayable...the poems often confront a frontier between Time and timelessness, light and dark, life and death and - embracing these - silence and song. This is essentially metaphysical poetry, which springs from life and lives and presses upon questions of ultimate meaning.'
Jeremy Hooker”
By some way, Seán Street's most ambitious collection...pushing thought to the edge of the sayable...the poems often confront a frontier between Time and timelessness, light and dark, life and death and - embracing these - silence and song. This is essentially metaphysical poetry, which springs from life and lives and presses upon questions of ultimate meaning.'
Jeremy Hooker”
“70 Degrees Below Zero
'Precise, elliptical lines'
Paul Conway, Tempo Quarterly”
'Precise, elliptical lines'
Paul Conway, Tempo Quarterly”
“Time Between Tides: New and Selected Poems 1981-2009
In his poems the natural world ‘becomes a state of mind’ where we are encouraged to hold a dialogue with the nature of the place. As we wrestle with words and meaning ‘rushing towards darkness’, we discover the role language plays in our survival, ‘taking us beyond industry into identity.’ In the end, the way we experience reality, the exactness of our encounter, our fate, is ‘down to a voice’. These poems are to be savoured.
Shanta Acharya”
In his poems the natural world ‘becomes a state of mind’ where we are encouraged to hold a dialogue with the nature of the place. As we wrestle with words and meaning ‘rushing towards darkness’, we discover the role language plays in our survival, ‘taking us beyond industry into identity.’ In the end, the way we experience reality, the exactness of our encounter, our fate, is ‘down to a voice’. These poems are to be savoured.
Shanta Acharya”
“Time Between Tides: New and Selected Poems 1981-2009
Creates a wonderfully bleak and desolate space...often spectral and evocative...This is certainly a book to buy.
Christopher J.P. Smith, 'Acumen'”
Creates a wonderfully bleak and desolate space...often spectral and evocative...This is certainly a book to buy.
Christopher J.P. Smith, 'Acumen'”
“Time Between Tides
Street unearths loss, memory and redemption from English terrain like few other poets.
The Times”
Street unearths loss, memory and redemption from English terrain like few other poets.
The Times”
“Radio and Other Poems (Rockingham Press)
He has a great ear and a great sense of the world as parable and echo chamber.
Piers Plowright ”
He has a great ear and a great sense of the world as parable and echo chamber.
Piers Plowright ”
“Radio and Other Poems (Rockingham Press)
Seán Street is one of the best contemporary poets of the English landscape, but not an over-reverential one.
Christopher Somerville, The Daily Telegraph”
Seán Street is one of the best contemporary poets of the English landscape, but not an over-reverential one.
Christopher Somerville, The Daily Telegraph”
“Radio and Other Poems (Rockingham Press)
Outstanding; evocative, wryly funny .
Richard Mabey ”
Outstanding; evocative, wryly funny .
Richard Mabey ”
“This True Making (KQBX Press)
He is in the great tradition of Hardy, Thomas and Larkin, and he uses their skills and taut control of word and line and image.
James Gibson ”
He is in the great tradition of Hardy, Thomas and Larkin, and he uses their skills and taut control of word and line and image.
James Gibson ”
“This True Making (KQBX Press)
One of Street’s greatest poetic strengths is the way that he can evoke joy and terror with an hallucinogenic clarity.
Brian Hinton ”
One of Street’s greatest poetic strengths is the way that he can evoke joy and terror with an hallucinogenic clarity.
Brian Hinton ”
“A Walk in Winter (Enitharmon Press)
The emotion is in the perception of places and things, the sharp ‘mundane detail’; the reader is allowed to see with the poet.
Jeremy Hooker”
The emotion is in the perception of places and things, the sharp ‘mundane detail’; the reader is allowed to see with the poet.
Jeremy Hooker”
“A Walk in Winter (Enitharmon Press)
His work grows out of a tradition that includes Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas and the Prose of Richard Jefferies. In his poems it is still bearing fruit that is at once extremely refreshing and extremely English.
Charles Tomlinson ”
His work grows out of a tradition that includes Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas and the Prose of Richard Jefferies. In his poems it is still bearing fruit that is at once extremely refreshing and extremely English.
Charles Tomlinson ”
