Metropole

<p>There is an amusing asperity. And for all its judgements Metropole is rather forgiving. Irresistible of course-and smart. - Arlo Banens <em>The Tune</em></p><p></p><p>His work characterised by its 'degree zero' cool Bolton would seem to have taken his American influences and refined them through an apparatus built of French cinema nouveau roman and contemporary art criticism: coolly conversational-but flexibly elastic-this work can contain multitudes. - Peter Goldsworthy <em>Australian Book Review</em></p><p></p><p>Excellent. - Millie Dickins <em>Astrolabe</em></p><p></p><p>Morose counter-intuitive something of a zany Ken Bolton cuts a moodily romantic figure within the dun Australian literary landscape his name inevitably conjuring perhaps that best known image of him bow-tie askew grinning cheerfully at the wheel of his 1952 Lancia Aurelia <em>'Mandy'</em> an image that belies the tales of later suffering - the affairs the court appearances the bad teeth - and speaking of teeth the beautiful poems wrenched from the teeth of despair & written on the wrist of happiness where happiness happens to like its poems written best (in his inordinate phrase).</p>