Book Description

Storyteller is the third collection of stories written in verse by David Hamilton. Each story is told by a historical figure to convey allegory, symbolism and metaphor, with the author as the overarching narrator. The book takes readers on a journey through imaginative worlds where the reader witnesses experiences and meets people they would meet in their own lives. “Listeners live this as a communal story, a shared history that makes us part of it. Isolation is filled in, emotions link the community. Would our communal lives Make an interesting play?” David’s unique collection aligns contemporary content with traditional poetic forms, linking the two together to provide a social commentary on the modern world. Such technique can be witness in ‘The Lotus Eaters’, a story that first appeared in Homer’s Odyssey. Circe’s transformation of men into swine is here presented as escapism through drugs. David has also updated other traditional stories such as Reynard the Fox to tell the story from the fox’s point of view, and Chaucer’s The Hall of Fame. The collection concludes with a sequence of seven Pastorals, featuring myths and deities from classical times telling practical stories of husbandry. David’s latest collection of poetry is wordly and not academic, and presents readers with a unique combination of traditional forms and contemporary content. The book will appeal to fans of poetry, as well as readers that have enjoyed David’s previous works, King Alfred's Jewel (Matador, 2014) and Concept Poems (Matador, 2016). David has contributed essays to the New English Review and Storyteller is advertised in the Literary Review.