The Kabul Olympics

The Kabul Olympics Synopsis

The Kabul Olympics is a book of impossible places, from the imagined Kabul of the title poem to â_~City of Treesâ_T which conjures an alternate, parallel Manchester in the aftermath of the Arena bombing, from a plane spiralling ever upwards into the eye of a storm in â_~Godsendâ_T to the becalmed travels of â_~The Harboursâ_T. Many of these poems find themselves in the heart of political crises as well as returning to the household lyrics which John McAuliffe has made his own. This is vivid poetry which pits individual lives and ordinary days and hours and minutes against the historical events and catastrophes which would blow them away.