Poetry Notebook: 2006-2014 - Brossura

James, Clive

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1447269128 ISBN 13: 9781447269120

Casa editrice: Pan Macmillan, 2016

Riassunto

Clive James was one of our finest critics and best-loved cultural voices. He was also a prize-winning poet. With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, Poetry Notebook draws together his best writing on the art form that mattered to him most.

'Marvellously entertaining' – Observer

'He reminds us that poetry is, or can be, "the most exciting thing in the world"' – Martin Amis

Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, Clive James was a dedicated student. For him, poetry was nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime; this book is a distillation of everything he learned.

From Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound, James explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory.

A committed formalist and an astute commentator, he offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets, and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life – just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time.

Whether discussing technical details of creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating.

'I read Clive James's Poetry Notebook standing by my poetry wall to save getting up and down, and my wall turned out to be just railings' – Tom Stoppard

Su questo libro

Recensione

The material was well worth collecting . . . entertaining . . . His hand has not lost its cunning (Financial Times)

He is a unique figure, a straddler of genres and a bridger of the gaps between high and low culture. He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time (Bryan Appleyard Sunday Times Culture)

The James voice is immediately recognisable. To describe it as comic does not do it justice: it might be fairer to say that the world it inhabits is prone, at most times, to a comedy of desperate sorts . . . James's best comedy is in the phrase-making, a craft at which he excels . . . James was - and remains - far more than a clever boy laughing at muddied oafs. He is a scholar who has preferred wearing his scholarship lightly . . . Full of an energy that is partly Augustan but racier, as if Dr Johnson had sealed a pact with the 19th-century poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed . . . Witty but fully sounded through, grave but not solemn (George Szirtes New Statesman)

As a critic, James is formidable, blending vast reading with the knowledge of practice. He demurs from having an "aesthetic system", but this is too modest. There are some clear positions in Poetry Notebook, and they are erudite, strident, but balanced . . . Poetry Notebook is a stellar collection by a great Australian writer, a man who, "[l]ooking back ... with tired eyes", retains the poetic enthusiasm of his teenage self (James McNamara The Australian)

We should be grateful still to benefit from [Clive James'] encyclopaedic knowledge of and love for poetry and his almost faultless ability to, as he so suggestively puts it, 'listen to the flavour' of verse (James Marriott Literateur)

Clive James's Poetry Notebook reintroduced me to the intense pleasures of close reading. Although he has some hard - and funny - things to say about Ezra Pound, James is firmly committed to celebration. He reminds us that poetry is, or can be, "the most exciting thing in the world". And this is what literary criticism, and literary pedagogy, should aim for: not to add a further encrustation of complexity, but simply to instil the readerly habits of gratitude and awe (Martin Amis, Books of the Year 2014 Financial Times)

James's miniature essays . . . showcase his passion for verse - for the questions it raises and the answers it can provide. Deeply personal and formally incisive (Books of the Year 2014 Financial Times)

The Clive James voice: intensely serious yet self-mocking, grave but never solemn, highbrow but never snobby. And always gorgeously inventive (Books of the Year 2014 Arts and Letters Daily)

I read Clive James's Poetry Notebook standing by my poetry wall to save getting up and down, and my wall turned out to be just railings (Tom Stoppard, Books of the Year 2014 Times Literary Supplement)

Most of the essays - as well as the supplementary material printed at the end of this book - are distinguished by sensitivity, good sense and discrimination, products of a lifetime's devotion to poems and poetry (Andrew Riemer Sydney Morning Herald)

Descrizione del libro

Renowned critic and bestselling writer Clive James sets down his thoughts on the art form which matters to him most: poetry

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Pan Macmillan
• Data di pubblicazione: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1447269128
• ISBN 13: 9781447269120
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 256
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile