The Boys at Twilight: Poems 1990 - 1995

by Glyn Maxwell

Book Overview

The poems in this volume were selected by Glyn Maxwell from TALE OF THE MAYOR'S SON (published in 1990, when he was twenty-eight), OUT OF THE RAIN (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), and REST FOR THE WICKED. Maxwell "is a formalist," wrote Robert McIlwaine about his first book, "but . . . he is an outspoken anti-elitist social poet. His strenuous well-wrought poems . . . come from an English tradition of technical virtuosity with plain speech."...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618064141
• ISBN13: 9780618064144
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The Development of a Career

I sometimes wonder why young writers allow their publishers to talk them into releasing a "selected poems" volume. Almost invariably, they will come to see much of their earliest work as a development, not a finished product. That fact is very much in evidence in this work. Maxwell makes selections from his first 3 books, and each book is more accomplished than the one before. His formalism becomes more assured with each successive book. As such, I recommend this book to people interested in Maxwell from his other works, or who are interested in neo-formal poetry in general. Be aware, though, that you can't judge the whole book by the first few poems.