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Loading... The Unaccompaniedby Simon Armitage
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  RandyMetcalfe | Sep 17, 2018 |  no reviews | add a review
'The most popular English poet since Larkin.' Sunday Times After more than a decade and following his celebrated adventures in drama, translation, travel writing and prose poetry, Simon Armitage's eleventh collection of poems heralds a return to his trademark contemporary lyricism. The pieces in this multi-textured and moving volume are set against a backdrop of economic recession and social division, where mass media, the mass market and globalisation have made alienation a commonplace experience and where the solitary imagination drifts and conjures. The Unaccompanied documents a world on the brink, a world of unreliable seasons and unstable coordinates, where Odysseus stalks the aisles of cut-price supermarkets in search of direction, where the star of Bethlehem rises over industrial Yorkshire, and where alarm bells for ailing communities go unheeded or unheard. Looking for certainty the mind gravitates to recollections of upbringing and family, only to encounter more unrecoverable worlds, shaped as ever through Armitage's gifts for clarity and detail as well as his characteristic dead-pan wit. Insightful, relevant and empathetic, these poems confirm The Unaccompanied as a bold new statement of intent by one of our most respected and recognised living poets. 'A writer who has had a game-changing influence on his contemporaries.' Guardian 'Armitage is that rare beast: a poet whose work is ambitious, accomplished and complex as well as popular.' Sunday Telegraph 'The best poet of his generation.' Craig Raine, Observer No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)821.92Literature English English poetry 1900- 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4)
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Wikipedia in English
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In the latter, mirthful, camp is certainly the justly famous, “Poundland,” a satirical treatment of shopping in a pound (or dollar) store done in the style of an Ezra Pound canto. Brilliant! Almost equally pleasant is, “Thank You for Waiting,” and, “The Poet Hosts His Annual Office Christmas Party.” There are also allusive poems here with a nod to poets past, such as Wordsworth (“The Candlelighter”). A number of the poems take objects as their meditative subjects — “A Chair,” “A Bed.” And others are more directly concerned with metaphysical matters such as passing time (“Nurse at a Bus Stop”) or death (“The Unaccompanied”).
There are no weak poems in this collection but inevitably there will be favourites for each reader (and potentially different favourites on different readings). My favourites on this reading were the aforementioned “Poundland,” “The Present,” “Miniatures,” “The Unaccompanied,” and “Homework.”
Recommended. (