OUT OF MIND

¶ In his début poetry collection, Thomas Joachim Kingston emerges as a poet whose work is infused with intelligence, humour, wit, grief, unabashed fierceness, and often tenderness. Unexpected glimpses into the nature of writing, of learning, and observation are revealed in poems that remark upon the musicality and barefacedness of language, the erudition of Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath, and the emotional probing of paintings by William Blake and Salvador Dali. The poems take us through memories, reflections and imaginative engagements, traversing a wide range of subject matter without losing sight of the fascination and complexity of the human condition. His open-eyed, open-minded verse creates a world we at once recognise and see afresh. With its insightful and imaginative breadth, Out of Mind evokes emotions that are both intimate and universal.

• Kingston has been gifted with a rare ability to weave unguarded displays of emotive and erudite poetics together to potent effect, and he does so with a seemingly unaffected aura of effortlessness. Out of Mind roams widely, and benefits from it—Kingston has an impressive knack for making a diverse range of topics his own, and it has yielded a collection of poems that demand a great deal from the reader whilst giving even more back. ❧ Ben Meyerson

¶ Thomas Joachim Kingston grew up in Germany and England. He studied English language and literature at the University of London and worked throughout most of his life as a teacher sharing his love of literature, and in particular Shakespeare, with his students. Kingston has also written critically on Milton and Pinter and is at present occupied with research into aspects of language loss. He is married and has two daughters and lives in Hertfordshire, England.

¶ He writes: “I am fascinated by Man, Woman, God and their language and know that poetry is the nature of their relationship with one another. Every point of contact imposes a distinctive voice, tone and quality of language. There is always contradiction, always complexity, and always simplicity. Poetry is the challenge to transform the well known into a fresh illusion.”