Poems - Hardcover

Ross, Alan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1843432242 ISBN 13: 9781843432241

Publisher: Harvill Secker, 2005

Synopsis

Cricket writer, author of acclaimed autobiographies, independent publisher, editor of the London Magazine, traveller, sportsman, Alan Ross was foremost a poet of high elegance, whose sixty years of work, from his commission in the Royal Navy in 1941 to his death in 2001, is selected and introduced in these pages by his friend David Hughes. Alan Ross's poems are always news. Indeed, he invented a poetic genre that extended well beyond occasional verse: poetry as a brief, intense form of journalism, easy to read, quick to stir response. He is reporter - cannier than most - from any front line he picks: battlefields of the spirit, convoys to Russia, post-war Germany, Iraq in the 1950s, South Africa in ferment, test matches at Lord's, the United States of the 1980s, his Indian birthplace and his Sussex homeland, but especially islands, those "interruptions of the diurnal". To convey public and private events, Ross sketches a shorthand of his own. At their chosen level, half documentary, half commentary, his images cast a cumulative light on the kicks and miseries of 20th-century war and love: running remarks on an active lifetime that outpace most prose.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Ross was born in Calcutta in 1922 and spent his childhood in Bengal. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II and was editor of the London Magazine for forty years, introducing the work of writers such as Paul Theroux, Graham Swift, Hugo Williams and Allan Massie to the British public. His books include poetry collections, biographies, travel books and autobiography. He died in 2001.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1843432242
• ISBN 13: 9781843432241
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304