Other Lives

Some thoughts. I like the way he abandoned strict rhyme and regular metre after his first three collections, and worked at a freer verse from his Pulitzer winning fourth collection 'At the End of the Open Road' (1963) until his last 'There You Are' (1995). I like very much his commitment to plain speech that was evident from the start of his career and found even more varied expression once the shift mentioned above had taken place. Before that change, whilst their was already the commitment to unshowy diction, the poems read like an outsider trying to write their way into a tradition - a formal, romantic tradition that derives from another continent in a previous century and which I think must have already started to sound archaic to most mid-twentieth century American ears. His early war poems, for example, are embarrassingly poetic, not least because he is more often interested in the experience of being a young poet, doing the American in Paris routine, than with th...

Thank you to those who sent messages wishing my book well on the day of its release. The day was strangely typical, though as far as poetry goes, I exchanged a spare copy of Seeing Stars for Identity Parade which I'm taking on holiday on Sunday along with The Best American Poetry 2004 (ed. ,Lyn Hejinian). I'm also packing the latest issue of Poetry Review and Louis Simpson's collection There You Are - both of which arrived in the post while I was out. Louis Simpson has been one of my favourite poets for many years and I was pleased to see Bloodaxe reviving interest in his work by publishing a selected collection earlier this year. The first poem I read of his, appropriately enough, was in Paris, about 20 years ago. Perhaps it was in Hall's anthology. I loved it immediately and knew that was how I wanted to write. Strangely enough, I didn't make any effort to get hold of his individual books until about a year ago. This past year I have ordered and read everything he...