New Selected Poems of W. S. Graham

Author: Graham, W.S.

Brand: Penguin Random House

Edition: Main

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 144

Release Date: 20-09-2018

Details: Product Description
One hundred years after his birth, W. S. Graham's words seem more awake than ever. His subtle exploration of the paradoxes of language, his passionate conviction of the importance of art and the love he expresses for the people and landscapes of his native Clydeside and adopted home of Cornwall attract more readers each year. In startlingly original poems, he celebrates family and friendship and probes the limits of our understanding of the world and our place in it. Graham's
New Collected Poems (2004) marked a crucial point in the growth of his reputation, bringing together for the first time all the poems of his seven collections as well as some of the unpublished material that had come to light since his death in 1986. Now, as we honour his centenary, this
New Selected Poems presents his best and most characteristic: from his epic seafaring masterpiece 'The Nightfishing' to the quirky metaphysics of 'Implements in their Places', as well as a selection of his early neo-romantic poems, which Graham himself believed were essential to a full understanding of his oeuvre, and some remarkable uncollected work. There is no better way to make the acquaintance of one of the greatest British poets of the twentieth century.
Review
A discovery. The art of the unsaid, with something of Wallace Stevens's lightness. -- Beverley Bie Brahic ―
Times Literary Supplement BOOKS OF THE YEAR

The centenary of the great Scottish poet WS Graham was marked with
New Selected Poems, edited by Matthew Francis. Graham believed that language contained the "shape of all of us", but no modern poet has written more touchingly about loneliness, often in the dead of night. The Thermal Stair, his elegy for the painter Peter Lanyon, is a heartfelt lament of great artfulness, which also magically captures the coastal landscape of Cornwall, where he lived. -- Jeremy Noel-Tod ―
Sunday Times, Poetry Books of the Year
Book Description
New Selected Poems to mark the centenary of this undervalued, key twentieth-century poet.
About the Author
William Sydney Graham (1918-1986) was born in Greenock, Scotland, and trained as an engineer. He settled in West Cornwall where a growing colony of experimental artists came to respect the determination and acute self-criticism with which he pursued his poetry. He wrote widely anthologised elegies for three of his artist friends, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon and Bryan Wynter, and is now widely viewed as one of the key UK poets of the late twentieth century. Graham's main collections are
The Nightfishing (1955),
Malcolm Mooney's Land (1970) and
Implements in their Places (1977), all of which can be found in
New Collected Poems (2004).

Matthew Francis is the author of four Faber collections, most recently
Muscovy (2013). He has twice been shortlisted for the Forward Prize, and in 2004 was chosen as one of the Next Generation poets. He has also edited W. S. Graham's
New Collected Poems, and published a collection of short stories and two novels, the second of which,
The Book of the Needle (Cinnamon Press), came out in 2014. He lives in West Wales and is Professor in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University.

EAN: 9780571348442

Package Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches

Languages: English