Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Poets In Their Own Words

Paperback

Main Details

Title Don't Ask Me What I Mean: Poets In Their Own Words
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Don Paterson
By (author) Clare Brown
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 234,Width 156
Category/GenreAnthologies
ISBN/Barcode 9781447219514
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Pan Macmillan
Imprint Picador
Publication Date 5 January 2012
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Don't Ask Me What I Mean is a comprehensive guide to the last fifty years of British poetry -written by the poets themselves. In this collection of short essays, published in celebration of the golden anniversary of the Poetry Book Society, the reader will find Philip Larkin writing on The Whitsun Weddings, Louis MacNeice on The Burning Perch, Paul Muldoon on the etymology of `quoof', Carol Ann Duffy on difficulties with gonks and Simon Armitage on the Dead Sea scrolls - as well as rare contributions from Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Kingsley Amis, R. S. Thomas, Andrew Motion, U. A. Fanthorpe, Jo Shapcott, Geoffrey Hill, Michael Donaghy, Elizabeth Jennings and many, many others. Together these statements give an intellectually dazzling, candid and deeply personal account of a turbulent and fascinating period in -our recent literary history. They will also afford the reader a unique insight into some of the most remarkable minds of our time.

Author Biography

Clare Brown is Director of the Poetry Book Society and lives in London. Don Paterson is a poet, musician and editor, and lives in Kirriemuir.

Reviews

'A sparklingly perceptive, intellectually lively, delightfully quirky and, above all, profoundly personal portrait of recent literary history' The Times 'The tone is by turns sheepish, apologetic, hesitant, and even mildly cantankerous. In short, this book contains some of the best and most engagingly human prose about the agonies and travails of writing poems that I have read in a long time' Financial Times