Eustace and Makepeace - Their Final Encounter
Artist’s Book
Eustace and Makepeace - Their Final Encounter is available in a signed limited edition of 50 copies, printed with archival pigment on German etching paper, and created with the support of Arts Council England.
The book brings together images and poetry that intersect to deal with issues of identity, dissolution and change, explored through inner and outer worlds. Some of the text was a prize winner in the National Poetry Competition, and the images are derived from six canvases, each five foot by four foot, that soared to the ceiling in the MK Calling 2020 exhibition at Milton Keynes Gallery, (now part of Plus Tate).
The Disappearance of Makepeace - A Tale of Two Lives
Podcasts
The podcast underpinned my exhibition of the same name. It is a mystery thriller tracing the relationship of Eustace and Makepeace, from their childhood meeting to their final encounter. It is a story of disappearance, mystery and murder through Eustace’s adventure in becoming an artist.
Jason Smith’s Nocturnal Opera
Poetry
The book involve narratives of encounter and change, leading the reader in an adventure of poetry, prose and artwork through one night in one house, moving with its eponymous hero from room to room in different encounters. The drawing of the house acts as a Contents Page where Jason's route can be identified by the chapter numbers. Jason Smith's Nocturnal Opera was published by The Cinnamon Press.
The poem - Song of the Expelled Insects - from the book was a prize winner in the National Poetry Competition.
The Burial of Crispin Pyke
Poetry
The nature and achievement of The Burial of Crispin Pyke can be described in the words of William Empson:
“It seems to me that recent Poetry has fallen into a dismal narrow rut, and Nick Malone is quite right to be outside it. The poem is very unself-centred, and much concerned with depictions of Nature, also mulling over his relations with mankind. Much of it is free verse, but it regulary works up to lyrical passages in rhyme and metre. . . Crispin Pyke after his burial, is gradually reabsorbed into nature, in spite of obstacles from modern pollution of Nature”.
"Demonstratably talented work" The Sunday Times
"A notable achievement of arresting and origional quality ... a powerful, metaphysical force with passages of great beauty" Iron
"Rich language that cries out to be spoken" Eastword
"Strong, tender and admirably taut ... with the skill to write extended meditation in the line of Lucretius, Donne's Second Anniversarie and Gerontion" New Poetry