Felix Dennis Launches Second Book of Verse, Lone Wolf. Tours USA and UK with 'Did I Mention The Free Wine?' Tour
London, November 2004. Lone Wolf is the second book of verse by Felix Dennis to be published by Hutchinson. The first, A Glass Half Full, published in 2002, has become one of the biggest-selling books of new poetry in Britain for many years. Both books have appeared in Braille and spoken-word editions.
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Felix Dennis has promoted his poetry with an extensive series of readings. These readings were attended by thousands of poetry lovers. Billed as the 'Did I Mention the Free Wine?' tour, over 20,000 glasses of French wine were served to audiences in 32 American and British cities. At each venue, long queues formed waiting for Dennis to sign books - he estimates he has signed over 7,000 copies of his books for readers so far.Dennis has also appeared on stage at charity events with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company reading his poetry. These events, one at Gotham Hall in New York City and the other at The Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, were directed by RSC artistic director Michael Boyd and RSC associate director Laurence Boswell. Both evenings sold out.
The American edition of A Glass Half Full, was published by Miramax Books in September of this year and seems set to repeat its success in the UK. As with the British edition, it contains a spoken-word CD of Dennis reading his verse. The first 15,000 copies of Lone Wolf also contains a new spoken-word CD as well as a documentary DVD made by Australian film maker Fiona Prendergast.
Felix Dennis's poetry has sparked a sharp debate in British and American poetry circles, possibly because it is unusual for books of original verse to sell in such quantities or for poetry readings to be attended by several hundred people at a time. In addition, his use of formal metre and rhyming has been attacked as 'a backward step for poetry'.
While the American critic and author, Tom Wolfe, has called Dennis 'a 21st-century Kipling' and John Walsh in The Independent has written that 'if Waugh were still alive he would fall on Dennis's poetry with a glad cry of recognition and approval', others are less complimentary. One well-known British poet has called him 'a Philistine'. Another complains that Dennis's books only sell because of publicity in the media. Scores of reviews by readers on the internet, however, contain phrases like: 'This is a wonderful read...'; 'I devoured this book in an all-night sitting, and cannot wait for more...'; 'Lone Wolf is the kind of book that changes lives...'; 'the best new book of verse in decades...' and 'A Glass Half Full may well succeed in making poetry popular again...'.
'I believe my critics have a point about publicity contributing to sales,' says Dennis. 'But they can hardly blame me for attempting to widen the readership of poetry when it is their own fashionable subservience to free verse which has created a climate where a new book of poetry is considered a success when it sells a few hundred copies. The plain fact is that most readers simply do not like free verse. They prefer adaptations of traditional forms - forms like the sonnet, the ballad and the villanelle which have served us for centuries.'
Felix Dennis is currently working on a book of nursery rhymes for adults tentatively titled When Jack Sued Jill, in which he mocks the corrosive effects of political correctness and celebrity culture. When Jack Sued Jill is scheduled for publication in late 2005.
