Shrines of Upper Austria

Phoebe Power

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781784105358
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Longlisted for the 2019 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize.

Shortlisted for the 2019 Seamus Heaney First Collection Prize.

Shortlisted for the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award from the Society of Authors.

Shortlisted for the 2018 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Winner of the 2018 Forward (Felix Dennis) Prize for Best First Collection

A Poetry Book Society Spring 2018 Recommendation

Wandering in central Europe, a traveller observes and records a landscape of lakes, folk culture and uneasy histories. Phoebe Power's Shrines of Upper Austria gathers numerous stories and perspectives, such as the fragmented narrative of an Austrian woman who married a British soldier after the Second World War, and the voices of schoolchildren and immigrants. Strange discoveries are made: a grave for two dead goats; a lantern procession on the night of Epiphany; a baby abandoned by a river; a homemade frog-puppet.

The poems are a collage of stories and histories, set in a variety of forms and registers. They are attentive to local detail, rich in the names of people and places - Marija, Omegepta, Eck 4 and the Loser Mountain. Mixing poetry and prose, image and narrative, German and English, Power's poems are a celebration of creativity in unlikely places. Against a disquieting backdrop of mild winters and memories of snow, they invite us to question what it means to feel at once a stranger and at home.

Contents

1. Title Page
2. Dedication
   
3. sex and love with the soon-to-be accountant
4. what young india wants
5. Rina
6. The Moving Swan
7. children
   
8. *
10. Epiphany Night
11. Austrian Murder Case
12. Ice Rink
13. from A Tour of Shrines of Upper Austria
14. fasching
15. Installation for a New Baby
16. Goat Grave
17. 8th May
18. Isis and Marija
19. Georgiana
20. Production Line of a Small Gift for the Ladies
21. Puppet-Maker
    
22. *
24. Name
25. Es war einmal
26. now I’m a bit mad
27. Villach
28. I wish she’d never told me
29. Schloss Cu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• sex and love with the soon-to-be accountant
• what young india wants
• Rina
• The Moving Swan
• children
• *
• Epiphany Night
• Austrian Murder Case
• Ice Rink
• from A Tour of Shrines of Upper Austria
• fasching
• Installation for a New Baby
• Goat Grave
• 8th May
• Isis and Marija
• Georgiana
• Production Line of a Small Gift for the Ladies
• Puppet-Maker
• *
• Name
• Es war einmal
• now I’m a bit mad
• Villach
• I wish she’d never told me
• Schloss Cumberland
• there was this fellow
• 1943–5 Ebensee
• you don’t know what’s true
• In and Out of Europe
• I’m not coming to a country
• *
• notes on climate change
• silver white winters that melt into springs
• Eisblumen
• the weather’s changing
• then you boil the milk
• Milk
• lovely sausages
• British
• some people have tea
• Austrian pastorals
• somewhere
• Glossary
• Copyright