Customer Reviews

The Silent Partner (Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize Library)

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The poems in this volume are rare in contemporary poetry in that they manage to be both clever and moving at the same time. Williamson writes adeptly in regular meter and rhyme, and his take on the world is fresh and often surprising.

These make me think of snow globes, delightful little worlds in miniature. The topics are clever - the unrecognized artistry of a counterfeiter; the abstract beauty of the world as seen through someone who needs glasses; the historic significance of junkyards full of cars. Because the poems are personal this book would make a nice gift.

Following in the grand tradition of New Formalist poets, the author brings his unique contribution to the forefront of poetry that should be read and re-read today. Harking back to Thomas Hardy, W.B.Yeats, Robert Frost,Walter de la Mare, John Masefield, W.H.Auden, A.E.Housman and carrying forward in the footsteps of modern greats like Richard Wilbur, Gjertrud Schnackenburg, Elizabeth Jennings,A.E.Stallings, Dana Gioia,and John Hollander, Mr. Williamson shows he is a poet that is to reckoned with. Although technical prowess is only a necessary, not a sufficient condition to be counted with the masters, Greg is well on his way with the poems selected here. Favorites include Counterfeit and Winter. It would be an even greater tribute to his skill to see some villanelles and sonnets in his next collection. A must have addition to the poetic repertoire of what Yeats called 'words set to life's music'.