There are three reasons for getting hold of this delightful little volume.
The first is to enjoy thirty completely fresh, amuse-bouche of George Szirtes’ poetry. His facility with words, rhyme, metre, cadence, assonance, consonance is masterful. This is always so with his poetry. But for this collection he is speaking with the voices of others – and he captures those others beautifully.
Which leads on to reason the second: if there are poets amongst those treated in this book that you do not know, this little volume will introduce you to them most engagingly. I had never come across George Herbert before so was particularly entranced by the concrete example (a poem created in the shape of a pair of barbells – a recurrent image in the collection, unsurprisingly) of his seventeenth century style.
I particularly liked the e.e. cummings and the Emily Dickinson pastiches (being both poets that I much enjoy, but occasionally feel are a teensy bit pretentious too): both had me laughing out loud. To name but a few of the others treated, Sylvia Plath and Rainer Maria Rilke are here; also Dante and William McGonagall. But my personal favourite is the Edith Sitwell. If you have never heard William Walton’s Façade, with Sitwell bellowing her poems through a megaphone over the music, then you really, really must remedy that. In the meantime treat yourself to this Sitwell-ese. If possible, bellow it – through a megaphone is ideal (it brings out the rhythm). There isn’t a dud in this collection. And there is even an engaging little coda.
Oh, wait – I said there were three reasons for getting hold of this collection. The third is the completely gorgeous little book in which the poems are contained. The paper is thick and creamy, the cover feels delightful in the hand. The design is restrained and classy. It begs to be given as a gift.
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Published by Judi Moore
Hi there,
I hope you find something to interest you here.
In December 2017 I published my fourth book – ‘Wonders will never cease’. It’s a satirical campus novel set in the fictional Ariel University in 1985. If you enjoyed Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse novels, Willy Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’, David Lodge’s campus novels or Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ back in the day, you may enjoy revisiting the ivory towers of 1980s’ academe thirty years on. See what you think.
“It is December, 1985. The year is winding gently towards its close until Fergus Girvan, a Classicist at Ariel University, finds his research has been stolen by the man who is also seeking to steal his daughter. But which man is, actually, the more unscrupulous of the two? And is there hope for either of them?”
In the autumn of 2015 I published a volume of short fiction: 'Ice Cold Passion and other stories'. I am also the author of novella 'Little Mouse', a shortish piece of historical fiction which I published in 2014 and, a sequel to it, 'Is death really necessary?', my eco thriller set in the near future and which, confusingly, I published in 2009.
All the books are available from all good online bookshops and FeedARead on paper, and as e-books on Kindle.
On a semi-regular basis, and about a month after the event, I post here reviews which I do for Big Al & Pals, the premier reviewer of indie books, based in the States. My interests tend to thrillers, SF, magic realism and other quirky stuff.
On this blog are also posted the reviews I did for Leighton Buzzard Music Club over some five years up to the end of 2015. LBMC present annual seasons of eight monthly chamber music concerts at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard, Bucks. They select young musicians just beginning to make their name - and the concerts are usually magnificent. I was very proud to be associated with them.
I review other music, books, theatre and exhibitions which I've particularly enjoyed.
BTW - it says the link to Facebook is broken. I dispute that. Click it and see, why not?
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Judi Moore 