|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reviews of books of Poetry/about Poets|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
Francis Philips reviews George Mackay Brown, by Maggie Fergusson
"Poets, said the romantic renegade Shelley, are “the unofficial legislators of the world”. George Mackay Brown, born in Stromness on the Orkney Islands in 1921, who died close to his birthplace in 1996, would not have described his calling with such lordly confidence. Shy, poor, fearful of leaving his home territory, visited by recurrent bouts of physical illness and depression, ill at ease with strangers, especially women, and slow to find his poetic voice he does not sound promising material for a major biography. That Maggie Fergusson has succeeded, in her searching yet sensitive fashion, in bringing Brown to life in all his awkward self-concealment, is a fine achievement. When other poets’ more lauded reputations will shrink with time, her subject’s work, with its beauty, strength and grasp of the numinous in ordinary life, seems set to survive. This book will surely give impetus to the process."
Click here for full review ...
Leo Madigan reviews "Barb of Fire"- poems of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity
"The inspiration behind combining the writings of Elizabeth the Carmelite with Marmion the Benedictine is a fortuitous one. Alan Bancroft who has conceived this little treasure has not only translated the poems but also provided a third of the book's volume by way of introduction. What he has achieved is to illustrate how both are singing the same song, one an exquisitely tuned contralto, the other a tenor, and both capable of reaching octaves not annotated in the score."
Click here for the full review ...
|
|
|
|
Theotokos Catholic Books - Book Reviews Section - www.theotokos.org.uk