Complete Poems

By Muriel Spark

Book Overview

Spark's poems are witty, idiosyncratic and haunting, transforming the familiar into glittering moments of strangeness, revealing the dark - and light - music beneath the mundane.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1784101249
• ISBN13: 9781784101244
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: Carcanet Press, Limited
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Muriel Spark: A Poet Beyond Competence

Really enjoyed All the Poems of Muriel Spark. Her work is intelligent, witty and not at all concerned with what reviewers on either side of the Atlantic might think. And evidently, Ms. Spark felt that way for over sixty years. Compared to the gobbledygook verse being shoveled our way by legions trained poets, these poems, which come from all periods of Ms. Spark's writing career, truly delight, perturp, shock, amuse, and provoke thought--provoke one to think. I believe I felt something, too. I checked 22 of these poems as outstanding in the table of contents (one check beside the title) and five of them as beyond-outstanding (two checks beside the title). Those beyond-outstanding I believe are "While Flickering Over the Pages" ( a kind of lament for a "wasp-like" reviewer), "That Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road" (a personal favorite for a personal reason), "Conversation Piece" (an insight into how talking about something sometimes obscures that something), "Bluebell Among the Sables" (pushes through to transcendence) and "Three Kings" (clear in its metaphor and timeless in its message). This book was a real find, for me, full of well crafted work in both formal and free mode. All the Poems of Muriel Spark should be read as a lifetime of stand-alone poems, since the poems were written over a very long period of time. Don't look for a developed, single theme the poet is striving to present, but the keen eye and verbal prowess of a genuine poet.