Anne Stevenson's Completing the Circle is a swansong collection of
moving elegies and celebrations written in her 80s during the early
decades of what she calls in her preface, 'a newly transformed,
already terrifying century'. Most of these poems look back on her
past from 'the viewpoint of a bewildered survivor facing up to the
realities of time passing and beloved contemporaries dying'. In
common with much of her work - and fittingly for this wide-ranging
book of remembrance - she manages to maintain a tone that is
serious without being funereal, acquiescent without indulging in
confessional despair, keeping personal self-pity at bay with a
characteristic detachment that can quietly slip into wit. The
title-poem, while it owes a debt to Rilke, essentially expresses
the poet's own long-considered belief that 'death naturally and
rightly completes the cycle we recognise and accept as life'.
Completing the Circle is Anne Stevenson's 16th collection, her
third since her much praised Bloodaxe retrospective Poems
1955-2005. It follows two other late collections, Stone Milk (2007)
and Astonishment (2012).
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
