Unearthly Toys

Ned Denny’s* Unearthly Toys* are treacherous playthings, as rigorously structured as they are thematically unsettling, a "rhapsody of rags gathered from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and fopperies confusedly tumbled about.," (as Robert Burton dubbed his *Anatomy of Melancholy*).

The collection opens on a twilit, numinous world of exotic drugs, subterranean drums and visionary apprehension in which – to quote* Twin Peaks*, a recurrent leitmotif – "the woods are wondrous … but strange." Interspersed with original poems in a variety of complex forms is a series of illuminated and darkly erotic ‘remakes’ of other poets’ work, from the Old English classic *The Wanderer* to late Baudelaire via Goethe, Cavalcanti, Li Po, enigmatic troubadour lyrics, and the medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Politics are never far away: modern man’s severance from the earth, the sacred, and his own inner self has grave consequences.