Arcimboldo's Bulldog

In Arcimboldo's famous seventeenth-century Mannerist portraits, the sitter's face is composed of organic matter. In subordinating a mixture of elements into an unrelated whole, imagination can transform the medium of expression itself. Tim Liardet's Arcimboldo's Bulldog: New and Selected Poems spans nine of his ten award-winning collections and adds new poems, fresh produce, reconfiguring his life's work to date. The book draws on his two T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collections The Blood Choir (2006) and The World Before Snow (2015). Vivid images, large abstractions, symbols, allegory, elegy, provocation, confession and lyric find a necessary place in his work. Arcimboldo's Bulldog records achievement and includes a promissory note towards his next collection.

Twice shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize, Tim Liardet is the recipient of many literary awards and Arcimboldo's Bulldog: New and Selected Poems is his eleventh book of poems. Liardet was born in London, educated at the University of York, and worked variously and travelled widely before moving into higher education. He has reviewed contemporary poetry for an extensive number of journals and newspapers, including the Guardian, Poetry Review and PN Review, and his poetry has been translated into Farsi, Macedonian and German. He has judged many competitions, not least for the Poetry Society, run workshops for the Guardian, taught a wide diversity of specialist courses for the Arvon Foundation, for various festivals and institutions in the United States and, from 2016 to 2018, was a Poetry Book Society selector. He has performed his work on BBC Radio Three and BBC Radio Four and at many major festivals and venues, including the Ars Interpres Festival, Stockholm, the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin, the Royal Festival Hall, Cambridge Public Library in Boston, the KGB bar and other locations in New York, plus a range of different venues in New Hampshire, Maine and Pennsylvania. He is Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University.