Description
Book SynopsisAlan Sillitoe is one of the leading novelists of the twentieth century and an award-winning poet (European Poetry Prize 2008). His books include Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which set a new direction in writing realistically about working-class lives. This selection of his poetry has been chosen by his wife, the acclaimed poet Ruth Fainlight.
Trade Review"The poems of a well-travelled man, a reader of maps in many senses, who ranged widely, restlessly, in his life and in his mind; poems that, whether brief lyric or extended parable, all speak to Alan Sillitoe's flintily individual grasp of the world, in all his voices, authentic, humorous, sardonic and compassionate." Alan Jenkins; "It is when he engages the novelist's eye for incident that he is most successful. "Car fights Cat" relates how a cat faced down a Daimler, tumbled beneath its wheels, then "shot out with limbs still solid, / Bolted, spitting fire and gravel / At unjust God who built such massive / Catproof motorcars in his graven image". There is a fine poem about a map of the Somme (one of several war-related pieces) and there are some welcome lighter moments in different voices - the rather brilliant duologue "Full Moon's Tongue" and the jaunty monologue "Derelict Bathing Cabins at Seaford"."; John Greening, The TLS, May 15, 2020
