UNDER THE CLOCK (POCKET PENGUINS 70'S S.)

by Tony Harrison

In May 2005 Penguin will publish 70 unique titles to celebrate the company's 70th birthday. The titles in the Pocket Penguins series are emblematic of the renowned breadth of quality of the Penguin... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141022736
• ISBN13: 9780141022734
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Pocket Penguins
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.1" x 0.2" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

Some fine poems, some strained poems

Camille Paglia recently observed that many of our most famous poets have written many very good poems, but not a single truly memorable one. I find it difficult to imagine a poetry reader not finding among Tony Harrison's work at least two or three such memorable poems, given his frank but not self-indulgent meditations on his uncomfortable family life, his skilled use of traditional forms and the expectations they bring, his ear for English, and his memorable blending of a working class Leeds background, contemporary terms and events, and a classicist's toolbox of allusions. As an example, one poem about an agricultural inspector observing the destruction of livestock in response to the mad cow disease epidemic begins "He wanders lonely as a cloud/to watch the cattle being culled." Harrison does not shrink from the dark counterpoints to pastoral romanticism.) Tony Harrison is well known in part for his satiric political epigrams, although the ones in this small collection attacking Bush and Blair ("The Krieg Anthology") for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem overwhelmed by rage, prime examples of intense emotion elbowing craft and nuance aside (nonetheless some are wonderful, e.g. "Illinois Elegy"). The best poems here seem to me to be the more reflective and personal, although political awareness is seldom completely absent. Readers with a taste for contemporary takes on traditional forms will likely find this book and Harrison's Selected Poems, and his V, among the books they return to with pleasure.