Description
Book SynopsisFleur Adcock began writing the poems in this book when she was 82. The two chief settings are New Zealand, with its multi-coloured seas, and Britain, seen in various decades. There are foreign travels, flirtations, family memories, deaths and conversations with the dead. Katherine Mansfield, incognito, dodges an academic conference; there’s a lesson in water divining as well as a rather unusual Christmas party. We meet several varieties of small mammal, numerous birds, doomed or otherwise, and some sheep. The book ends with a sequence in memory of her friend, the poet Roy Fisher.
Trade ReviewInformality and immediacy are vivid ways to remake a world; and Adcock’s style has not dated in the half-century since her debut. -- Fiona Sampson * Guardian *
Fleur Adcock’s poetry is lauded for its composure and ease of delivery. Yet that sense of control…belies a more complicated history. -- Julian Stannard * Times Literary Supplement *
Fleur Adcock is as clear-eyed as always in a collection that ranges widely over lost worlds, family histories …but always maintains the art of seemingly artless observation. -- Adam Newey * Guardian *
Adcock’s reputation has been founded on her spare, conversational poems, in which the style is deceptively simple, apparently translucent…those who see in such poems only flatness are missing the power of a voice which teases both reader and subject. -- Jo Shapcott * Times Literary Supplement *
Table of ContentsThe Mermaid’s Purse Island Bay The Teacher’s Wife The Islands A Bunch of Names The Fur Line A Feline Forage in Auckland House Peter’s Hat A Small Correction In the Cupboard Giza Siena Realms In the Cloud Hollyhocks Berries Amazing Grace Divining Welsh This Fountain Magnolia Seed Pods Bats Novice Flyer Wood Mice Sparrowhawk Election 1945 The Little Theatre Club The Other Christmas Poem Anadyomene Victoria Road To Stephenie at 11 PM Lightning Conductor The Annual Party Letting Them Know Blackberries Tatters The Old Road Poems for Roy: Dead Poets’ Society Jade Plant Double Haiku Elm Four Poems and a Funeral Maundy Thursday 2017 An April Bat Porridge Annual Tribute Winter Solstice Snowman Mayonnaise
