The poems in this volume were selected by Glyn Maxwell from TALE OF THE MAYOR'S SON (published in 1990, when he was twenty-eight), OUT OF THE RAIN (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), and REST FOR THE WICKED. Maxwell "is a formalist," wrote Robert McIlwaine about his first book, "but . . . he is an outspoken anti-elitist social poet. His strenuous well-wrought poems . . . come from an English tradition of technical virtuosity with plain speech." The Boys at Twilight shows, sometimes comically, men at war, boys at play, boys grown up, men overreaching and reverting. Other concerns are the dangers of authority and mob psychology, the absurdities of stardom and consumerism, the heroism of the decent, and the wisdom of doubt. His subjects range from biblical stories to the "Tale of the Chocolate Egg," which is a long, "pitch-perfect description of a bored young man"s growing obsession with a new kind of candy" (Adam Kirsch, New Republic). Always in his work, "Maxwell knows that to see into is not necessarily to see through . . . His virtuosity has a ballast of sobriety" (Poetry Book Society).

'"Some of the brightest poetic goods seen for many years."'

Glyn Maxwell was born in 1962 in Hertfordshire, England. He studied English at Oxford and poetry at Boston University. Among the honors he has received are the Somerset Maugham Prize and the E. M. Forster Prize, which he was awarded in 1997 by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Maxwell now lives with his wife and their daughter in the United States, where he teaches at Amherst College.

'Contents

Tale of the Mayor's Son (1990)

11 My Turn

12 Tale of the Mayor's Son

17 Drive to the Seashore

18 Flood Before and After

20 The Albatross Revolution

22 Mandate on an Eighth of May

25 The Pursuit

26 Mild Citizen

27 The High Achievers

28 Wasp

29 The End of the Weekend

32 A Whitsun

34 Just Like Us

36 Tale of a Chocolate Egg

52 Farm Close

Out of the Rain (1992)

55 Errand Boy

56 The Fires by the River

57 EC3

58 The Eater

59 The Uninvited

60 Recollection of a Meal

63 Helene and Heloise

66 We Billion Cheered

67 The Hang of It

68 Sport Story of a Winner

70 Dream but a Door

71 Desire of the Blossom

72 Rare Chat with the Red Squirrel

74 Plaint of the Elder Princes

76 Rumpelstiltskin

77 One and Another Go Home

78 La Brea

79 Nativity

80 War Hero

81 And Leaves Astonishing

82 Didymus the Seated

84 Springs of Simon Peter

85 Thief on the Cross

86 Out of the Rain

Rest for the Wicked (1995)

109 Peter Brook

110 The Ginger-Haired in Heaven

111 Birth Day

112 The Wish

113 Garden City Quatrains

116 As You Walk Out One Morning

118 Love Made Yeah

119 Either

120 The Boys and Girls of There

122 The Boys at Twilight

124 Song of Our Man

125 Growing Men

126 Younger Than That Now

128 The Stakes

129 The Furthest West

130 Watching Over

131 Lust

131 Conquest

132 The Sentence

133 The Night Is Young

134 If You Haven't Got a Shilling

135 Curse on a Child

136 Don't Waste Your Breath

138 Museum

139 Sulk

140 The Margit-Isle

142 The Great Detectives

144 The Devil at War

146 The Altered Slightly

147 Yellow Plates

148 The Sarajevo Zoo

150 A Force That Ate Itself

152 The People's Cinema

154 The Allies

155 The Horses' Mouths

160 Stargazing\n

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