Set Thy Love in Order: New & Selected Poems

Stephen Romer

ISBN 10: 1784103764 / ISBN 13: 9781784103767

Published by Carcanet Press, 2017

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact with no nicks or tears. Spine has no signs of creasing. Pages are clean and not marred by notes or folds of any kind. Seller Inventory # wbs8840890346

Synopsis:

Set Thy Love in Order: New & Selected Poems gathers the work of some thirty years, taken from Stephen Romer's four previous collections, along with a substantial selection of new poems. The title is a Dantesque imperative as old as the Trecento: Ordina questo amore, O tu che m ami set thy love in order, o thou who lovest me. Romer's central theme is encapsulated by these words, and his prolonged and painstaking exploration of the 'intermittences of the heart', frequently carried out with a Francophile self-consciousness and rueful wit, constitute so many variations on the theme. Romer's New & Selected articulates the constant oscillation between love, loss and longing, and the religious desire for 'refuge' or 'higher things', and how powerfully these can come to rhythm the life of the mind and the emotions. His more recent work has included poems of love and mourning for his parents, and elegies for friends. Derek Mahon singled out Romer's first collection Idols for its 'emotional candour and intellectual clarity', and since then the poet has endeavoured to turn the light of the intellect (and the wit) on the frequently chaotic and contradictory material of the heart.

About the Author: Stephen Romer was born in Hertfordshire in 1957 and read English at Cambridge. Since 1981 he has lived in France, where he is Maître de Conférences at Tours University. He has held Visiting Fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge and has taught in the US. He has published four full collections, including Yellow Studio (2008), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He translates widely from the French, and has edited the Faber anthology Twentieth-Century French Poems. Recently he has published translations of Yves Bonnefoy's The Arrière-pays (2012) and an anthology French Decadent Tales (2013). His poetry is described in the British Council Writers Directory and in Poetry International, and he has recorded a selection for the Poetry Archive. He was elected FRSL in 2011.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Set Thy Love in Order: New & Selected Poems
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Publication Date: 2017
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Like New