The President of Planet Earth

Imagines futuristic social states from the South American nation of `Oblivia' to post-independence referendum present-day Scotland. Questions of place and belonging, channelling messianic ambitions of modernism into rich and subversive comedy. A memoir of childhood, evocations with Russian and South American culture, and deep engagements with Ireland, the North of England, and Scotland. Identifies with the radical strain in Irish poetry. Includes translations from Middle Irish, Latin and French, sestinas and sonnets in Scots.

Inspired by the Russian futurist Khlebnikov, Wheatley provides a rivetting poetic vision of world culture.Shortlisted for the 2018 Irish Times Poetry Now Award. In his fifth collection of poems, David Wheatley twins his birthplace and his current home, Ireland and Scotland, to engage issues of globalism, identity, and language. He takes inspiration from the Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov, self-nominated President of Planet Earth, who in a state of apocalyptic rapture envisioned a new world culture, its rise and its dramatic undoing. In The President of Planet Earth Wheatley brings an experimental sensibility to bear on questions of land and territory, channelling the messianic aspirations of modernism into subversive comedy. We move between Pictish pre-history, the imaginary South American nation ofaA A aA A `Oblivia', aA A and post-independence referendum Scotland. Wheatley marries classical, Gaelic, Scots and continental traditions. He deploys several styles - prose poetry; concrete poetry; translations from Middle Irish, Latin and French; sestinas and sonnets in Scots - to heady effect. The President of Planet Earth refashions language and the world it shapes, devising a transformative poetics.