A crocodile out of nowhere - James Roome

‘A crocodile, out of nowhere’ is a wonderfully strange pamphlet, seeming to operate at odds with reality, bearing a diverse bundle of influences, from Cortázar and Confucius, to Selima Hill and Luke Kennard. ‘A crocodile...’ is the work of a top-class, seriously silly, poetic imagination. Essential reading.
charlie bayliss

‘James Roome weaves a Lynchian world in which characters act in ways that appear unhinged and gruesome to us but are, on the surface at least, entirely normal to them. Horrors are passed off as banal, committed in broad daylight, and everybody shrugs. An arsonist uses his own body to make fire, an investigation is launched into the death of goats, and something grey is most definitely following you. The poems are reminiscent of point & click adventure games in the exactness of their scenarios and the detached mannerisms of their protagonists, leaving us with no guiding certainty of how to feel. Eyeballs may be falling, but the landscape is pocketed with ‘magical campfires’ of beauty.     
Matthew Haigh

 

Buy A Crocodile, out of nowhere along with Roome's debut chapbook Bull for £10. Use code Roome21 at checkout (whilst stocks last).