Description
Book SynopsisRuth Fainlight is one of Britain's most distinguished poets. Born in New York City, she has lived mostly in England since the age of 15, publishing her first collection, Cages, in 1966, and her retrospective, New & Collected Poems, in 2010. Her poems 'give us truly new visions of usual and mysterious events' (A.S. Byatt). Each is a balancing act between thought and feeling, revealing otherness within the everyday, often measuring subtle shifts in relationships between women and men. Her poems ‘give us truly new visions of usual and mysterious events’ (A.S. Byatt). Each is a balancing act between thought and feeling, revealing otherness within the everyday, often measuring subtle shifts in relationships between women and men. She has always drawn on a wide range of subject-matter, yet the arc of her attention has shifted in her later work, the meaning and effect of the passage of time becoming more central and fascinating as she ages. Written during her 80s, the poems of Somewhere Else Entirely are shadowed by the death of her husband Alan Sillitoe. The book also includes several short pieces of prose, memoirs of childhood years spent in the USA: firstly, those from zero to five years old, then a group about the ages between 10 and 15, during the Second World War, when their mother took her and her brother Harry back to their American birthplace.
Trade ReviewHer New & Collected Poems, representing half a century's work, asks us to read her writing life as a journey that never really ends, even with publication of a monumental achievement...an extraordinary maturity of voice and vision. The essential continuity of her work is immediately striking; the poems affirm her own sense of poetry (and life) as a constant happening, the past a perpetual present.' – Fran Brearton, Guardian
Table of Contents11 Meditations on Yellow 12 Late Spring Evening in the Suburbs 14 The Ides of March 16 The Motorway 17 In the Square 17 i Snowdrops 18 ii The Choice 19 Oxygen Mask 20 Alan’s Jacket 21 Somewhere Else Entirely 22 A Meeting with My Dead 23 Froth 24 Sand 25 Torsion 26 Numinous 27 Magic 28 Empty Space 29 Regret 30 Wonderful 31 The Red Shirt 32 Blind Love 33 Inside a Yellow Laburnum Tent… 34 Chestnut in Spring 35 Chestnut 36 The Playground 37 Ladbroke Square Notes 38 The Jungle 39 The Log 40 Westward Streaming Cloud 41 Venus 42 Coquillage 43 Hunter’s Moon 44 At the Allotment 45 Ars Anatomica 46 Aloe 47 World Events 48 Time and Function 49 Timeless Waters 50 Continuation 51 The Next Station 52 Petulant 53 The Poet’s Funeral 54 Daisy 55 Thought-forms 56 Underground 57 At Baker Street Underground Station 58 Elementary 59 A Republican Tale 60 Floor-walker 62 Male and Female Created He Them 63 What Ails Thee, Santa? 64 Madame Lavitte 65 Three Men 68 …only then 69 Them 70 The Mother 71 The Difference 72 Art and Action 73 New Year Wish 77 A Living Creature 78 Language 79 Tomato 81 The Grand Concourse 83 Tightrope Walkers 85 Marranos 87 My First Library 90 The Scratch 91 Goldenrod 93 The Dove Dress 95 Rover 98 The Graduation Dress 100 Malted Milk
