Seventy-Seven Poems
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Seventy-Seven
Poems
ISBN 0 9541573 1 1 |
There is a wide spread of theme and treatment in these seventy-seven poems, which were written over a period of many years.
Some draw on the experience of the poet’s diplomatic career. For instance, the opening poem “Official Hospitality” describes an official visit to Moscow, against the background of Vietnam, with Mrs Gromyko toasting the young poet “with her glass held high”. It goes on to a lunch with the dictator Ceausescu in Bucharest, and ends with a description of a meeting with Chinese leaders in Peking. Another poem takes as its theme a visit to the United Nations in New York following the Arab-Israel Six Day War of 1967.
But there are many other subjects, including poems on experiences in India, Egypt and Spain; on the eerie nature of coincidence and the strange discoveries of science; on landscapes in Wales and in the poet’s native Yorkshire; on hospitals; and on childhood memory.
The leading British poet Dannie Abse identified “a great gift of evoking atmosphere in these poems”.
Six poems from the seventy-seven follow: