Description
Book SynopsisSet Thy Love in Order: New & Selected Poems gathers the work of some thirty years, taken from Stephen Romer's four previous collections, along with a substantial selection of new poems. The title is a Dantesque imperative as old as the Trecento: Ordina questo amore, O tu che m' ami - set thy love in order, o thou who lovest me. Romer's central theme is encapsulated by these words, and his prolonged and painstaking exploration of the 'intermittences of the heart', frequently carried out with a Francophile self-consciousness and rueful wit, constitute so many variations on the theme. Romer's New & Selected articulates the constant oscillation between love, loss and longing, and the religious desire for 'refuge' or 'higher things', and how powerfully these can come to rhythm the life of the mind and the emotions. His more recent work has included poems of love and mourning for his parents, and elegies for friends. Derek Mahon singled out Romer's first collection Idols for its 'emotional candour and intellectual clarity', and since then the poet has endeavoured to turn the light of the intellect (and the wit) on the frequently chaotic and contradictory material of the heart.
Trade Review'Readers open to Romer's scrupulous, passionate music and the conversational intimacy of his address will gather rich rewards.' - Sean O'Brien, Culture; 'Stephen Romer is one of our finest poets of thwarted or impossible love ... Emotional vulnerability is tempered by a wit and formal control that are never obtrusive.' - Adam Thorpe, Guardian; 'Romer is one of our finest contemporary poets because he has made such a distinctive idiom out of such a complicated inheritance.' - Adam Phillips; 'Here is a poet haunted by history, war, and the poignancy of love passing ... He displays a seriousness which is seldom too weighty, and a compassion which never sinks into sentimentality.' - Elizabeth Jennings, Sunday Telegraph
