"Collected Poems" made publishing history when it first appeared and has now sold well over two million copies. This edition, published for the first time in mass paperback, is as complete as it can be made - incorporating as it does "Uncollected Poems" and also two other poems not originally included.
John Betjeman Collected Poems
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A neat comic sense, an unfeigned comfort with 19th-century manners and forms, and a good eye for English milieus made Betjeman (1906–1984) both a great craftsman of light verse and the most popular British poet of his day. His first U.K. Collected Poems, in 1958, sold millions of copies. Newly available in the United States alongside A.N. Wilson's new biography, this big book can show Americans what so many Britons cherish: ballads and love poems devoted to strapping, tennis-playing young women; a fondness for Cornwall's seaside; devotion to traditional England, along with an amused contempt for the middle-class ways that might destroy it (the ways in which he, and his readers, actually live). Betjeman and his sympathetic characters, from King Edward VIII to a "husband down at the depot with car in car-park," hike along "stony lanes and back at six to tea," celebrate Christmas, admire South London's churches and denounce the "Inexpensive Progress" which plans to "Leave no village standing./ Which could provide a landing/ For aeroplanes to roar." Though Philip Larkin called Betjeman (poet laureate from 1972 on) his favorite contemporary poet, "Betj" provides nothing like Larkin's memorable depths; his enviable skill, however, might entice Anglophiles, or devotees of light verse, to queue up. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
'A true poet who extends experience' Margaret Lane
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Betjeman, enough said.,
By Josef K (NYC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collected Poems (Paperback)
What can I say, it's John Betjeman... He's great!
I especially love his poem, 'Slough' (rhymes with cow) -- imagine that he wrote this poem as war with Germany loomed on the horizon and England was soon to be bombed unmercifully. Opening stanza: Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough It isn't fit for humans now, There isn't grass to graze a cow -- Swarm over, Death! Betjeman is so easy going that the radical or even impudent aspect of some of his ideas passes under your guard and strikes like a knife when it catches up to you. He's undoubtedly one of the best poets of the 20th Century. The intensely local aspect of a lot of his poetry is opaque to an international audience, but there is still plenty that is deep and universal here.
4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very English poet,
By
This review is from: John Betjeman Collected Poems (Paperback)
I tried very hard to build up some enthusiasm for this collection. Betjeman has long been one of the most loved and popular of English poets. But I found the light verse too light, and the precise description of English landscape uncorrelated with some higher moral and spiritual vision as for instance in Wordsworth.
Not my cup of tea, but this does not mean that it is not a good brew for those who enjoy an intelligent rhyming perceptiveness, a humorous at times wistfully imaginative view of the world. Because my review is I think gives a poor description of Betjeman's poem I will bring an example , so that the reader of this review will at last have a ' feel' of what the work is. 14 November 1973 Hundreds of birds in the air And millions of leaves on the pavement, And Westminster bells ringing on To palace and people outside- And for all the words,' I will' To love's most willing enslavement, All of our people rejoice With venturous bridegroom and bride. Trumpets blare at the entrance, Multitudes crane and sway Glow, white lily in London, You are high in our hearts today!
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