Supernova – Philip Rösel Baker
ISBN: 9781788648523
£12.99
Published in November — pre-order your copy now
Supernova moves from stellar collapse and the origins of life to intimate human moments, combining scientific insight, imagination and emotion to explore our place in the universe.
Ranging across deep time, evolution and daily life, the collection brings precision, curiosity, and warmth to its subjects — a civilisation facing extinction, a child learning to lose, the first flicker of sight, tender poems of family life — each rendered with exactness and wonder.
Expansive and accessible, Supernova is a debut from a distinctive voice with a rare capacity to make complex ideas felt, balancing intellectual rigour with lyric clarity.
Praise for Supernova
What happens when poetry and planets collide? In Supernova, the result is an explosion of light, sound, moral force and the emergence of a strikingly original poetic voice. This collection announces a writer to the contemporary literary landscape with a collection that is bluntly honest and fiercely imaginative.
Here, the voices of the downtrodden, those living with the consequences of climate change, are given unmistakable priority. Philip challenges false certainties and dismantles the ‘illusion of ownership’ that some cling to in their relationship with this fragile planet. His honesty is uncompromising; at times, it hits with the shockwave of a sonic boom. The poems carry a moral and philosophical clarity that is as beautiful as a supernova’s radiance… and just as dangerous.
Reading this collection is like savouring a bowl of white truffle and Beluga caviar: rich, rare, and deeply satisfying. But be warned, hidden among the delicacies is the occasional slice of Carolina Reaper chilli, a reminder that Philip’s work is not merely to be enjoyed, but to be reckoned with.
Dr. Alan Corkish, author and Senior Editor at Erbacce-press
Piercing descriptions — like this one of a rainbow: “The curve of it / perfectly protractor precise. / Stenciled, on thin air. / Pure distilled sky” — ballad poems with refrains, narrative stories, (sometimes sci fi, like the captivating “Supernova” title poem), a meditation on colour, planetary reveries on our Moon and the moons of Jupiter, Philip Rosël Baker has crafted a grab-bag book of far-reaching (beyond mere planetary) insights, deep thought and the latest in scientific theory told in a paradoxically ambiguous (if crystal clear) metaphoric storytelling-in-verse lyric style. A gem of a first book.
Art Goodtimes, Founder of the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Programme,
poetry editor of the national mycological journal Fungi.
and poet-in-residence for the Telluride Mushroom Festival, Colorado, USA.
Philip Rösel Baker is a man with something to say and the artistic ability to say it through poetry. His boundless range of subject matters reflect an intelligent sense of curiosity and a passion to engage with life, know it, and show us. He brings an appreciation of our world unfettered by the normal silos of knowledge, so you are likely to find family, science, and the humanities –philosophy especially– all melded into one poem with each poem being a feast of connections some of which; however, apparently rare and unlikely, are shown to be obvious. Philip has more than paid his dues to the poetic art and the craft is applied, apparently effortlessly and with the lightest touch. Note though that what may first appear to be the poetic device of metaphor will often turn out to be a synapse into greater patterns and intricate networks.
Connections are what these poems are about.Fred Ellis, Poetry Anglia and author of What is Poetry?
Author biography
Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German poet living on the East Anglia coast with his wife, Maria. He has won both the George Crabbe and the Shelley Memorial prizes, and his poems are to be found in print and on-line magazines in the US and Ireland, as well as the UK. A keen interest in science and a deep concern for the environment — and for his grandchildrens’ futures — are evident in his writing. He reads regularly at open mic sessions in Ipswich and has been one of Suffolk Poetry Society’s featured poets at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. He lives 5 minutes’ walk from the beach and loves the dark night skies and the clarity of the stars over the sea.