- Published: 15 August 2018
- ISBN: 9781911214373
- Imprint: Jonathan Cape
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 80
- RRP: $32.99
playtime
- Published: 15 August 2018
- ISBN: 9781911214373
- Imprint: Jonathan Cape
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 80
- RRP: $32.99
Andrew McMillan's award-winning debut collection, physical, a raw and tender exploration of gay love and desire, heralded him as a new force in contemporary poetry. This, his second book, only cements that reputation... these poems are insightful, revealing, honest and brutally tender.
attitude
Andrew McMillan’s second collection, playtime, is every bit as impressive as his first, physical… He seems attuned to the world around him and he has a sly sense of humour at his command. He is more than promising now.
Paul Bailey, Literary Review
playtime is admirably devoted to intimacies and it has a tenderness to it even in its most private of moments... This is a triumphant collection of poems.
Elaine Cosgrove, Totally Dublin
McMillan scrutinises the violent idealism of masculinity in monologues that are both tender and steely… told with courage, invention and charm.
Jeremy Noel-Tod, Sunday Times, **Books of the Year**
[An] equally page-turning second collection… McMillan is 30, but writes with the melancholy understatement for an older writer… McMillan’s pared-back style puts great weight on each word, often with magnetic results… McMillan wears his influences on his sleeve – Thom Gunn, Sharon Olds’s explicit Odes, a flicker of Book of Matches-era Simon Armitage – yet brings them together in a voice that is confident, captivating and distinctly his own… Any fans of physical worrying how McMillan could top one of the most widely praised debuts of recent years should breathe a sigh of relief: playtime may be a quieter collection, but it’s a deeper, richer one too.
Tristram Fane Saunders, Telegraph **Poetry Book of the Month**
By returning to familiar ground and deepening his engagement with it, McMillan makes clear that the poetics of physical wasn’t a one-off. As with all the best second outings, this collection firmly establishes his patent… [a] fully realised, deeply humane collection.
Sarah Crown, Guardian
[In playtime] McMillan makes it clear that the poetics of physical wasn’t a one-off. As with all the best second outings, this collection firmly establishes his patent… [a] fully realised, deeply humane collection.
Sarah Crown, Guardian
Vivid, accessible and honest, sometimes uncomfortably so.
Alan Bennett, London Review of Books
An unobstructed exploration of an important subject. McMillan is writing not only see-through but see-beyond poetry.
Kate Kellaway, Observer