Book Recommendation: Charles Simic Selected Poems 1963-2003. London, Faber & Faber, 2004 ( 160 pages)

These are clever, highly accessible poems by the UNH professor. Although the poems were written over a period of forty years they are remarkably similar in structure, tone and subject matter. These poems deserve close and repeated readings. Simic writes with simplicity but with great humour and profundity. I particularly enjoy how he layers the ideas in his poetry.

An excellent selection from his book The Voice at 3 A.M. : Selected Late and New Poems can be found at Google Books: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=y0vL053y6q8C&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=charles+simic.the+lives+of+the+alchemists&source=bl&ots=-bn3406Am0&sig=PAjInGcnhjRxJB-sLFOBcbVf9DU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nhoFT-bpOcKWiQfgh4SdAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

The following Poetry Foundation article provides a clear overview of his life and work:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-simic

Brian Henry’s review of Simic’s Jackstraws (1999) for Boston Review also provides interesting insights into his poetics: http://bostonreview.net/BR24.3/henry.html

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: PHILIP LARKIN: COLLECTED POEMS. The Marvell Press, London, 1988 (330 pages).

What I like about recommending books is that it saves me from writing a fully considered analysis. There is a lot to learn from Larkin's mature poetry especially his collections The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He writes with great economy and with an aching, layered profundity which constantly explores what this mess we call life is about. Personal favourites which I have studied closely elsewhere, include 'Ambulances', 'Here', 'Dockery and Son', 'Aubade' and 'The Life with a Hole in it'.

For a sprawling, highly authoritative biography of Larkin's personal life and his career as a writer you can't go wrong with Andrew Motion's: PHILIP LARKIN- A Writer's Life (faber and faber, London, 1993 (570 pages). The photo of  Larkin above is outside University of Hull Library where he worked as Head Librarian for decades.

Buy it here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philip-Larkin-Sir-Andrew-Motion/dp/057117065X

Larkin was a very private person and refused almost all requests to read or discuss his poetry. He admired Thomas Hardy and the French symbolic writers of the 1890s like Mallarme. He dabbled in symbolism as a way to create mood and convey intense emotions. In his poems he often moves from his closely observed surroundings by evoking a series of illogical and obscure connections to escape the flow of time.

My favourite poem of Larkin's has to be 'Ambulances' for its terrifying & unshrinking view that death for all of us is only a matter of time, and that all that stuff that makes us unique as individuals will be quickly forgotten by others as time passes.

Find the poem here:http://allpoetry.com/Ambulances

BOOK RECOMMENDATION- JOHN FORBES COLLECTED POEMS

The best book of Collected Poems I have ever read by an Australian writer is easily by John Forbes.

John Forbes 1950-1998

This site provides links to his on-line poems, a list of publications and resources. There is also a ‘In Memorium’ section in which writers pay tribute to the great poet.

http://afactor.net/forbes/info/jf.html

‘Form, Intuition and (a) song’ (Otis Rush):

Cath Kenneally interviewed John Forbes in September 1991 for her arts breakfast program on radio 5UV. Forbes talks about why he decided to become a poet, his writing process and about several of his poems. This is a frank and informative discussion. http://www.eaf.asn.au/otis/jfwck.html

Jacket 3 April 1998

This issue is dedicated to John Forbes.

http://jacketmagazine.com/03/index.shtml

Update 3 September 2011: The Australian Poetry Library has recently included 30 of Forbes’ poems on their mammoth site. Discover his work here: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/forbes-john

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Michael Dransfield COLLECTED POEMS. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1987 (401 pages).

 A clever, self taught American writer recently asked me who I regarded as the greatest Australian underground poet of all time. Who was i to offer my bullshit opinion?-  but I was quick off the mark: Michael Dransfield (1948-1973).

After Dransfeld  left his privileged private school life behind he roamed the back streets of Sydney. He became a celebrated poet and drug addict and reportedly died of ‘acute broncho-pneumonia and brain damage’. He was only twenty-four years old.  Dransfield left a legacy of close to one thousand poems.

As a starting point a net sampling of Dransfield’s extraordinary work can be found here: http://www.sweatywheels.com/Dransfield/Poetry.html

‘Shit’, ‘Endsight’, ‘Jazz Baby’, ‘Fix’, ‘Overdose’: it is life as viewed from the margins but it is still highly accessible stuff. Tough first person narrative poems. Without a parachute. Knifed reality.

Photo from: http://www.sweatywheels.com/Dransfield/home.html

If you are interested in reading a highly readable scholarly study of Dransfield’s work have a look at Louis Armard’s article, ‘STILL LIFE WITH HYPODERMIC: MICHAEL DRANSFIELD AND THE POETRY OF ADDICTION.’

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/louis_armand/dransfield.html&date=2009-10-26+01:57:25

Also check out Derek Motion's valiant attempt to make some sense of Dransfield's work in his article 'Michael Dransfield's Innocent Eyes' (2007) in his Cordite Poetry Review article:

http://cordite.org.au/features/derek-motion-michael-dransfields-innocent-eyes/

According to Amazon.com a Collected Poems copy is now worth close to $150 (AUS). Buy it here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0702218286/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

UPDATE 3 September 2011: The Australian Poetry Library has recently put an amazing 398 of Dransfield’s poems on their massive Australian poetry site for free. Check it out here: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/dransfield-michael