King of a Rainy Country

Matthew Sweeney wrote this set of 50 prose poems in response to Baudelaire’s posthumously published collection of prose poems (or petits poèmes en prose, as he called them). Modelling his pieces as closely as possible on Baudelaire’s, Sweeney has produced a sequence that is wide-ranging in both subject and mood – there are stories, parables, meditations, diatribes that are, by turns, quirky, reflective, ascerbic and funny – the overall effect of which is an evocative autobiographical snapshot of his life in Paris. This unusual and unexpected collection from Matthew Sweeney is a significant addition to his already outstanding body of work.