Released October 30th 2022 // 978-1-915079-44-2 // 36 pages
The Coin focuses Caleb Parkin's poetics on his matriarchal line, cancer in the family, class, place, and other themes with moments of lyrical intensity and clarity. This is a book that undertakes explorations of identity, mortality, the grand/mother/son relationship, and more. These are poems about life, death, and the nature of being, in which humour, irony, and surprise are always at the edge of the page.
PRAISE for The Coin:
'Caleb Parkin writes with a confident freshness. The poems in this collection are bold, witty, moving and nuanced. Parkin writes about the mother/son relationship in a way that is poignant, but not sentimental, he captures the mirroring of self within that special bond and is able to use that as a way to explore the complex solar movements of families in orbit around the mother figure. These are sharp poems, moreish poems. Parkin uses his considerable poetic skill and knowledge to bring texture to the collection, using the page as canvas; as more than just frame; exploring what the page can offer, what language can offer, as structure to poems that are deep dives into the human experience. Parkin writes with originality and depth, tackling big subjects like cancer, death and identity with intelligence and skill. This is an exhilarating collection of poems, and one that I'll return to.'
- Wendy Pratt, When I Think of My Body as a Horse
