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The early years of poet P.J. Kavanagh's life - which took him from
a Butlin's Holiday Camp to Switzerland and Paris, to a battlefield
in Korea, to Oxford and Barcelona, and finally to Java - made
little sense to him, until 'something extraordinary happened': his
meeting with Sally, 'the perfect stranger'. This tender, funny and
quite unsentimental record of the uniqueness of human love is as
much a celebration of joy - despite its abrupt and shocking
conclusion - as it is a poet's tribute of thanks.
A selection of poems of less than fourteen lines, considered by Kavanagh and Michie to be the best in the English language - from medieval times to the twentieth century.
The early years of poet P.J. Kavanagh's life - which took him from
a Butlin's Holiday Camp to Switzerland and Paris, to a battlefield
in Korea, to Oxford and Barcelona, and finally to Java - made
little sense to him, until 'something extraordinary happened': his
meeting with Sally, 'the perfect stranger'. This tender, funny and
quite unsentimental record of the uniqueness of human love is as
much a celebration of joy - despite its abrupt and shocking
conclusion - as it is a poet's tribute of thanks.
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937), considered one of the finest World War I
poets, now takes his rightful place alongside the greats of English
poetry. His range is wide, including the First World War, in which
he served as an infantry private; passionate celebration of his
native Gloucestershire; and fears of the mental imbalance which led
to his eventual confinement in a mental hospital. Out of these
experiences, he created poetry that is entirely unique, vigorous,
musical, and direct. This selection of over 150 of his best poems,
has been compiled by the poet P.J. Kavanagh from his edition of the
Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney. This reissued edition offers, a few
corrected readings, as well as a useful Chronology and Introduction
to Gurney's life by P. J. Kavanagh.
In his foreword to this book, Derek Mahon notes that P.J.
Kavanagh's poems 'elude the obvious categories. He has never been
one of a "school"'. A poet of rural England, yet of Irish ancestry,
Kavanagh 'has always stood slightly apart'. He championed the poems
of Ivor Gurney and shares with Gurney not only a personal landscape
(that of Gloucestershire) but a poetic commitment to the actual and
specific, to nature writing at its most rootedly precise. His is,
in Mahon's words, 'a unique personal record': 'a lifetime's
dedication has produced its rich results'.
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