Poetry Notebook
2006–2014
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Clive James was one of our finest critics and best-loved cultural voices. He was also a prize-winning poet. With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, Poetry Notebook draws together his best writing on the art form that mattered to him most.
'Marvellously entertaining' – Observer
'He reminds us that poetry is, or can be, "the most exciting thing in the world"' – Martin Amis
Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, Clive James was a dedicated student. For him, poetry was nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime; this book is a distillation of everything he learned.
From Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound, James explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory.
A committed formalist and an astute commentator, he offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets, and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life – just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time.
Whether discussing technical details of creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating.
'I read Clive James's Poetry Notebook standing by my poetry wall to save getting up and down, and my wall turned out to be just railings' – Tom Stoppard
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection of "miniature essays" on poetry by the prolific James (Cultural Amnesia), who is both a poet and an opinionated, outspoken consumer of poetry, informs and delights. James's yardstick is clear "If only to secure a brief respite from the barely intelligible, it is forgivable to favour those poets who show signs of knowing what they are saying" and his voice direct, often blunt: F.R. Leavis "never wrote a poem, rarely said anything interesting about one," and Lawrance Thompson's Robert Frost biography was "dud scholarship." Yet James is fair in revisiting earlier pronouncements, such as of Elisabeth Bishop's poems, which he would now give "less stinted praise." A tone of appreciation prevails, even when it comes with reservations, and there are also surprises, like citations of John Updike's "dauntingly accomplished" light verse and introductions to the work of Australian poets like Stephen Edgar, James McAuley, and Peter Porter. Linked "Interludes" preceding each essay give the book coherence rarely achieved in a collection of previously published works, the bulk of these pieces having appeared in the magazine Poetry between 2006 and 2013. Speaking of Byron, James observes, "His best poetry is good talk based on knowledge." James, who wears his erudition very lightly, likewise offers "good talk" that will send readers back to their bookshelves and onto the Internet to read more great poetry.
