Poems 1960-2000 / Fleur Adcock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adcock, Fleur.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Physical Description:

287 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne : Bloodaxe Books, 2000.

Summary:

Fleur Adcock is one of Britain's most accomplished poets. Her poised, ironic poems are tense and tightly controlled as well as shrewdly laconic, and often chilling as she unmasks the deceptions of love or unravels family lives. Disarmingly conversational in style, they are remarkable for their psychological insight and their unsentimental, mischievously casual view of personal relationships.

Born in New Zealand, she has explored questions of identity and rootedness throughout her work, both in relation to her personal allegiances to her native and adopted countries as well as her family history, whose long-dead characters she brings to life. She has also written movingly of birth, death and bereavement, and has tackled political issues with honest indignation and caustic wit.

This first Collected edition of her poetry replaces her Selected Poems, with the addition of work from her later Oxford collections The Incident Book, Time-Zones and Looking Back. All her most celebrated poems are here, from the highly entertaining 'Against Coupling', 'Smokers For Celibacy' and 'The Prize-Winning Poem' to modern classics such as 'The Ex-Queen Amongst the Astronomers' and 'Things' -- as well as the notorious one about kissing John Prescott...

Contents:

Early Poems From: The Eye of the Hurricane (1964) and Tigers (1967)

Note on Propertius 14

Flight, with Mountains 15

Beauty Abroad 17

Knife-play 18

Instructions to Vampires 19

Incident 19

Unexpected Visit 20

For Andrew 21

For a Five-Year-Old 21

Miss Hamilton in London 22

The Man Who X-Rayed an Orange 23

Composition for Words and Paint 24

Regression 25

I Ride on My High Bicycle 26

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow 27

Hauntings 28

Advice to a Discarded Lover 29

The Water Below 30

Think Before You Shoot 31

The Pangolin 32

High Tide in the Garden (1971)

A Game 34

Bogyman 35

Clarendon Whatmough 36

A Surprise in the Peninsula 38

Purple Shining Lilies 39

Happy Ending 40

Being Blind 41

Grandma 42

Ngauranga Gorge Hill 43

Stewart Island 44

On a Son Returned to New Zealand 44

Saturday 45

Trees 47

Country Station 48

The Three-toed Sloth 49

Against Coupling 49

Mornings After 50

Gas 52

The Scenic Route (1974)

The Bullaun 60

Please Identify Yourself 61

Richey 62

The Voyage Out 62

Train from the Hook of Holland 63

Nelia 64

Moa Point 64

Briddes 65

The Famous Traitor 65

Script 66

In Memoriam: James K. Baxter 68

St John's School 69

Pupation 70

The Drought Breaks 70

Kilpeck 71

Feverish 72

Folie a Deux 73

Acris Hiems 74

December Morning 75

Showcase 76

Over the Edge 76

The Net 77

An Illustration to Dante 77

Tokens 77

Naxal 78

Bodnath 79

External Service 80

Flying Back 80

Near Creeslough 81

Kilmacrenan 82

Glenshane 82

The Inner Harbour (1979)

Beginnings

Future Work 84

Our Trip to the Federation 85

Mr Morrison 86

Things 87

A Way Out 87

Prelude 88

Accidental 89

A Message 89

Proposal for a Survey 90

Fairy-tale 92

At the Creative Writing Course 92

The Ex-Queen Among the Astronomers 93

Off the Track 94

Beaux Yeux 94

Send-off 95

In Focus 95

Letter from Highgate Wood 96

Poem Ended by a Death 97

Having No Mind for the Same Poem 98

Syringa 99

The Thing Itself

Dry Spell 100

Visited 100

The Soho Hospital for Women 101

Variations on a Theme of Horace 103

A Walk in the Snow 105

A Day in October 105

House-talk 107

Foreigner 107

In the Dingle Peninsula 108

In the Terai 108

River 109

To and Fro

The Inner Harbour 110

Immigrant 111

Settlers 112

Going Back 113

Instead of an Interview 115

Londoner 116

To Marilyn from London 116

Below Loughrigg (1979)

Below Loughrigg 118

Three Rainbows in One Morning 119

Binoculars 119

Paths 120

Mid-point 120

The Spirit of the Place 121

The Vale of Grasmere 121

Letter to Alistair Campbell 122

Declensions 123

Weathering 124

Going Out from Ambleside 124

Selected Poems (1983)

In the Unicorn, Ambleside 128

Downstream 128

The Hillside 129

This Ungentle Music 129

The Ring 130

Corrosion 130

4 May 1979 131

Madmen 131

Shakespeare's Hotspur 132

Nature Table 132

Revision 133

Influenza 134

Crab 135

Eclipse 135

On the Border 136

The Prize-winning Poem 136

An Emblem 137

Piano Concerto in E Flat Major 138

Villa Isola Bella 139

Lantern Slides 140

Dreaming 141

Street Song 142

Across the Moor 142

Bethan and Bethany 143

Blue Glass 143

Mary Magdalene and the Birds 145

Hotspur (1986)

Hotspur 148

The Incident Book (1986)

Uniunea Scriitorilor 156

Leaving the Tate 156

The Bedroom Window 157

The Chiffonier 158

Tadpoles 159

For Heidi with Blue Hair 161

The Keepsake 162

England's Glory 163

The Genius of Surrey 164

Loving Hitler 165

Schools

Halfway Street, Sidcup 166

St Gertrude's, Sidcup 166

Scalford School 166

Salfords, Surrey 167

Outwood 168

On the School Bus 169

Earlswood 169

Scalford Again 170

Neston 170

Chippenham 171

Tunbridge Wells 172

The High Tree 173

Telling Tales

Drowning 174

'Personal Poem' 175

An Epitaph 176

Being Taken from the Place 176

Accidents 177

On the Land 177

Icon 178

Drawings 179

The Telephone Call 179

Incidentals

Excavations 181

Pastoral 182

Kissing 182

Double-take 183

Choices 184

Thatcherland

Street Scene, London N2 185

Gentlemen's Hairdressers 186

Post Office 187

Demonstration 188

Witnesses 189

Last Song 190

Time-Zones (1991)

Counting 192

Libya 193

What May Happen 193

My Father 194

Cattle in Mist 195

Toads 196

Under the Lawn 197

Wren Song 198

Next Door 199

Heliopsis Scabra 200

House-martins 200

Wildlife 201

Turnip-heads 202

The Batterer 203

Roles 203

Happiness 204

Coupling 204

The Greenhouse Effect 204

The Last Moa 205

Creosote 206

Central Time 206

The Breakfast Program 208

From the Demolition Zone 209

On the Way to the Castle 210

Romania 211

Causes

The Farm 212

Aluminium 213

A Hymn to Friendship 214

Smokers for Celibacy 215

Mrs Fraser's Frenzy 217

Meeting the Comet 222

Looking Back (1997)

Where They Lived 234

Framed 234

The Russian War 235

227 Peel Green Road 236

Nellie 237

Mary Derry 238

Moses Lambert: the Facts 240

Samuel Joynson 240

Amelia 241

Barber 242

Flames 242

Water 243

A Haunting 243

The Wars 244

Sub Sepibus 245

Anne Welby 246

Beanfield 247

Ancestor to Devotee 247

Frances 248

At Great Hampden 250

At Baddesley Clinton 251

Traitors 252

Swings and Roundabouts 254

Peter Wentworth in Heaven 255

Tongue Sandwiches 257

The Pilgrim Fathers 258

Paremata 259

Camping 259

Bed and Breakfast 260

Rats 261

Stockings 261

A Political Kiss 262

An Apology 262

Festschrift 263

Offerings 263

Danger: Swimming and Boating Prohibited 264

Risks 265

Blue Footprints in the Snow 265

Summer in Bucharest 266

Moneymore 267

The Voices 267

Willow Creek 268

Giggling 269

Trio 269

The Video 270

New Poems (2000)

Easter 272

High Society 272

For Meg 273

A Visiting Angel 274

It's Done This 275

Kensington Gardens 276.

Notes:

"Poetry Book Society special commendation"--Cover.

Includes index.

ISBN:

1852245298

1852245301

OCLC:

44533303