Orpheus in the Undershirt

<p>“With <em>Orpheus in the Undershirt</em> Kevin Densley has produced his best book yet: sharp but not cutting tart but not cynical the collection weaves lyric barb and lament into a marvellous prickly garment that soothes as it stimulates. Don’t like small evocative poems as clear and complex as rockpools? Dive into an eight-page outlaw fistfight roaring with dust and despair. Not interested in ‘When Johnstone’s Circus Came to Town’? (Though why wouldn’t you be with its ‘toupeed ringmaster/in a red lamé suit’ and aromatic ‘strong whiff of manure’?) Explore instead the death of a bantam ‘inside the chookhouse/among the warm chooky smells’. Unlike most collections which attempt to blend ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture to find the charge of destiny in the nuts and bolts of the everyday <em>Orpheus</em> does it effortlessly without need of gimmicks or creaky overbearing conceits.  Here Kevin Densley fuses the marvels and mundanities of life into a witty searching collection that sings the subtleties of both.” – James Roderick Burns <em>Other Poetry</em></p>