Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Not since the late work of Erza Pound, the Maximus poems of Charles Olson, or the early poems of John Ashbery have the possibilities of poetry been so fundamentally questioned and extended as they are in the life work of J.H. Prynne. In his new Collected Poems we have a landmark book in modern poetry.
His poetry is austere, yet playful. It challenges our sense of the world, not by any direct address to the reader, but by showing everything in a different light, enacting slips and changes of meaning through shifting language. For over thirty years he has maintained this utterly singular English verse, often dealing with very basic, very current events and debates, such as economic pressures, life sciences, or medical physiology.
Collected Poems now provides many readers with the opportunity to experience the unique, challenging, and often complex world of Britain's leading late Modernist poet.