Tickets to the Fall of Icarus charts the flight of two flamboyant characters, Icarus and Audrey, as they navigate their way through the maelstrom of modern life amidst natural disasters, pandemics, online dating and even a little self-sabotage.
In artfully executed narrative poetry, Gering deploys his inimitable style and humour to bring characters into dynamic life on the page. Few readers won’t see glimmers or shards of themselves in Audrey and Icarus.
These vignettes are surprising, bittersweet and strangely insightful as they coalesce in a collection that is a challenging but joyful exploration of what it means to be alive and incisively engaged in the 21st century.
By the author of Staying Whole While Falling Apart.
Sample
Icarus Channels Cassanova’s Kitchen
Lulu, lover of cuttlefish, on a sill
in black and white. Charlotte spicily racked
between thyme and paprika.
Persia poised on a shelf with mortar
and pestle. Magnetic Madeline
to-and-froing on the freezer door.
Charlotte, meet Lulu!
Please, Maddy, put down the cleaver.
Sweet, sour, salty, spicy, umami –
you who rendered me sublimely
giddily – my tongue is dry. Where
have all the flavours gone?
The mini porcelain apartment blocks
I loved in Prague now grace the table
where I eat alone.
Behind their tiny ceramic windows
I sense contented couples sharing
summer fruits.
And my gathered exes appear
to be whispering – saucy blandishments
to stir me crazy.
Enough of this! Time to whisk eggs
and hatch hopes for a new partner
to season my days.
But trepidation grips tight
for I talk in my dreams.
My last darling had been drowsing
content in my arms until I cried out
for Lulu, so ending it –
another lover aghast and gone.
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd)
Gering takes us on the wonderful freefall — at times laugh-out-loud — of Audrey and Icarus. Full of literary references, puns and wit, this collection is a waterfall of mordant humour, note-perfect and a mirror to our post-pandemic selves. Read it in a rush or savour the sly satire — or just gorge on the whimsy and poetic spell-making. You’ll want to rush into the Australian bush to stash vodka and Lion Stout and make your own bottle sculpture by the road. And, of course, fall in love.
– Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, author of The Bundanon Cantos, Possession and Everyday Epic.
In Tickets to the Fall of Icarus, Gering gives us the putative mythical hero juxtaposed against quotidian Audrey in a well-choreographed yet often confronting poetic dance. Paradoxically, beauty is paired with pain and loneliness is ensconced in relationships. Gering achieves artistic flair through deft control of language and shots of Kafkaesque absurdism. This collection might be an invitation to dive deep into the blind-spot of the Johari window, that psychological tool to better understand our relationships and some frightening aspects of ourselves. But, hey, ultimately it’s the landing that kills you, not the fall itself. So, through Gering’s poignant yet bitingly honest storytelling, let’s enjoy the flight!
– Daniel Ionita, author of Pentimento