Publisher's Synopsis
This collection brings together longer poems written over the course of 50 years. Such poems enable a narrative to unfold or they may create the space for an extended meditation. Whether a sequence, a medley of forms bound together by a common subject or an extended column of verse, the longer poem invites the reader to become immersed in the flow of a process and is less dependent on that lyrical emphasis on beginnings and ends - which may appear to lend significance to the fragmentary anecdote. Passages of verse may be developed beyond fleeting insight and such passages may be appreciated for the grain of their literary style. The author comments, "an interest in my longer poems is crucial to any valuation of my work."
Anthony Howell is a poet and novelist whose first collection, Inside the Castle was brought out in 1969. He was invited to the International Writers Program, University of Iowa in 1971. His Analysis of Performance Art is published by Routledge. In 1997 he was short-listed for a Paul Hamlyn Award. Plague Lands, his versions of Iraqi poet Fawzi Karim, were a 2011 Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Step is the Foot - his analysis of the relationship of dance to poetry - is published by Grey Suit Editions. Incomprehensible Lesson - His second book of Karim's poems - was shortlisted for the Sarah Maguire Prize 2021. He is a Hawthornden fellow and has recorded poems for The Poetry Archive.
