Customer Reviews

Selected Poems, 1967-1987

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So there I was, in the bookshop, looking for a birthday present (I never give people books I don't first read AND enjoy) when the saleslady thrust this book in my hand and said "Read it." After vain protests that I'd never understood poetry, I opened the book. After two minutes I bought it.

This poetry, unlike the classical stuff that only uses words and phrases that I can't understand, is the stuff of today. Many poems talk of a male in love, but others talk of dying ("let me die when I'm old and in constant good tumour" or something like that), lips, nuclear war, loneliness, poets. This being a collection, even the worst poems are excellent. He uses words in ways I'd never imagined, laying them all over the place. And in a right place.

Somehow, he makes words talk.

History will be very kind to this poet. His work is pitched at a level anyone can respond to. Some of his metaphors are astonishing and more poignant based on the simplicity of the everyday life around the poet. There are no huge ideals just tales of everyday life. This is a spectacular book, and is saddly one of the most underrated I've ever read.