Mouthfuls of Space

The poems in MOUTHFULS OF SPACE offer a dissociative journey through the life of a once-homeless recovering drug addict and victim of childhood abuse. In his debut solo collection, Tom Prime's hypnotic, surreal voice reveals his transition from the street to the menial labour of factory work. There is beauty here, too, and mordant, bitter comedy: a sprite-like being imagines his hallucinations are a parallel dimension intermeshed with his lived reality on the street, where indescribable creatures coexist with hyenas dressed as real estate agents and those who march in the skeleton parade. MOUTHFULS OF SPACE explores trauma and the dehumanizing enterprise of factory work with sensitivity but also with suffocating desperation. Still, Prime finds comfort in the mother-shadow of trees, the old light of vibrating stars.

Poetry.