Description

Book Synopsis
Ballads are memorable. This book was finished when the poet was 50, with too much to remember: the shadows of the greater world, the bulldozers down the street tearing through a Victorian school, the generosity of its founders, its green graceful bell tower and its nesting jackdaws turned to a cry in the air. The bricks go off to salvage and are lost in other streets but the poems remain. Ballads are bare and brief; tried by time. They salvage but they sing, stubbornly. Their stories are sure: a woman in the kitchen, Handel at his illicit feast, the Russian dog heading for space. Shakespeare stops for breath on the stairs. Mithras is the milkman. There are cats and wild cranesbill. The poems nudge us on.

Bricks and Ballads

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    A Paperback / softback by Alison Brackenbury

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      Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 01/09/2004
      ISBN13: 9781857547511, 978-1857547511
      ISBN10: 1857547519
      Also in:
      Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Literary studies: poetry and poets

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Ballads are memorable. This book was finished when the poet was 50, with too much to remember: the shadows of the greater world, the bulldozers down the street tearing through a Victorian school, the generosity of its founders, its green graceful bell tower and its nesting jackdaws turned to a cry in the air. The bricks go off to salvage and are lost in other streets but the poems remain. Ballads are bare and brief; tried by time. They salvage but they sing, stubbornly. Their stories are sure: a woman in the kitchen, Handel at his illicit feast, the Russian dog heading for space. Shakespeare stops for breath on the stairs. Mithras is the milkman. There are cats and wild cranesbill. The poems nudge us on.

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