Selected Poems

By Roy Fuller, John Fuller and Neil Powell

From his first wartime collection evoking a generation's experience of a country made strange by blackouts and air raids, 'the vivid allegorical / Reality of gun and hangar', to the consolatory wisdom of the Last Poems of 1993, Roy Fuller was a poet of the familiar and ordinary made extraordinary. Mundane details, observed with Fuller's tolerant humour and acute eye, reveal depths and dissonances from which a civilised life may be created: 'the unremarkable year of painting the shed ... Is also that of harmonies / That have made one's life and art for evermore off-key'. On the centenary of Fuller's birth, this generous selection, introduced by John Fuller, the poet's son, and with an afterword by Neil Powell, Fuller's biographer, brings to a new generation of readers the work of one of the essential twentieth-century poets. With an afterword by Neil Powell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Release date: Jul 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781847776532

Reviews for Selected Poems

[edwinbcn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Usually publishers have a clear distinct understanding in the use of "selected poetry" and "collected poetry", the former suggesting a selection and the latter suggesting completeness albeit "up till then". It is also true that occasionally the title of a book on the cover is different from the title on the title page, often for marketing purposes. I wonder why the title of this volume is "Collected poems" on the title page but "Selected poems" on the cover. (Patrick Kavanagh (2005). Selected poems in Penguin Classics. The editor Antoinnette Quinn has quite a lot to say about about this in the bibliographical note (pp. xli-xlii), insisting that the present volume is named "Selected poems", making the title on the title page all the more puzzling, as in academic practice the title on the title page should take precedence over the title on the cover.Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) was an Irish poet. The introduction mentions that Kavanagh's poetry was not very well received by critics. He saw himself as an outsider, hesitant to call himself a poet.The poems show an independent mind that doesn't regard or follow the trends of the time. The reading is not easy. as poems seem of a certain roughness or stubbornness or even clumsiness over melodious flow. The poetry is marked my religion and rural, elements not often associated with modern poetry. Still, the poet seems to try to reconcile the modern form with traditional rhythm and form of ballads.I did not enjoy reading this collection, few poems really interested me.