From the Virgil Caverns

Redgrove, Peter

ISBN 10: 0224062360 / ISBN 13: 9780224062367

Published by Cape Publishers, London UK, 2002

About this Item

82pp. Card cover with flaps slightly dusty from age, page edges very slightly tanned for same reason but otherwise in pristine condition - new and unread. A collection of poetry from the poet's seventieth year, with an undertow of mortality, especially in the poems about his late father, but still notable for the poet's striking out in a new direction, using a liberating stepped verse form.

Seller Inventory # 001481

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From the Virgil Caverns
• Publisher: Cape Publishers, London UK
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224062360
• ISBN 13: 9780224062367
• Binding: Printer Wrapper
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Poetry

About this title

Synopsis

This collection marks a fascinating point in the poetic career of the late Peter Redgrove, when - at the age of seventy - he decided to strike out in a thrilling new direction.

Using a liberating stepped verse form, he opens up new paths in fresh territory, while consolidating his position as one of the finest poets of the natural world. The questing eye of his imagination is in constant motion: the book is full of doors and stairs and wheels, the movement of light and water, the world's daily transformations. Even his characters are shape-changers - the doctors, dentists, chemists and undertakers are all, in their way, magicians. And, evident throughout the collection, is an undertow of mortality - notably in the extraordinarily moving poems about Redgrove's late father: 'his knowledge went, and mine followed,/ Catch it before/ It leaves like a ghost,/ on these stepped verses'.

About the Author

Peter Redgrove was born in 1932. Apart from producing over thirty full-length collections of poetry he also wrote novels, plays and non-fiction - including The Wise Wound with Penelope Shuttle. Among the many awards he has received are the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Prix Italia and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He received an honorary degree from the University of Sheffield, which holds an archive of the poet's papers. He died in 2003. A posthumous collection, The Harper, was published in 2006.