Poems from Granta, Poetry Salzburg Review and Delta, though he's had other things in The New Yorker, PN Review, Stand and the TLS (he's a fellow of the RSL).
In the introduction, Peter Scupham writes that "In a poetic climate which is choc-a-bloc with relativism ... this collection obstinately assumes the need for poetry to move the human heart". The 4 sections are "Dissolution", "Unlucky Numbers", "Here and There" and "Springboard".
There's quite a range of difficulty - of language and allusion. This stanza for example starts simply enough, but the meaning of the final 2 lines is lost on me.
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But spring's a cheat, old men agree, and sagely they eschew the whore, repenting of their little spree and doing crosswords as before, though some of them resent their loss since life itself prevents their rest - hosanna knowledge of the cross constricted to the second best. ("Lament") |
Some of the pieces are easy-going - knowingly so sometimes, though not in this poem (from the "Here and There" section, which is the lightest of the 4) -
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August here's not bad, the fields are golden, spread like enormous rugs around the contours of a bulge in the ground you would not call a hill. ... The elms are all down of course that used to stand beside the church. And that's marooned in a field Nobody wants to cross ("Thingworth") |
"Crosswords" might be very clever/cryptic. I don't understand it. I don't understand "Left about Turn". And the following from "Among the Farthest Hebrides" sounds stodgy
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Forlorn in the salty gale I retain the bitter sense that though I am watched whichever way I turn everything that I know and feel would still be met with an indifference so complete as to annihilate all but the safety of the dead |
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