Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958-2008

Fiction & Literature, Poetry
Cover of the book Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958-2008 by Clive James, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Clive James ISBN: 9780393346190
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: March 22, 2010
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Clive James
ISBN: 9780393346190
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: March 22, 2010
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

“A generous helping of [James’s] very best, guaranteed to lift the spirit and raise the eyebrow.”—Billy Collins

Opal Sunset marks the exuberant introduction of Clive James’s poetry to an American audience.

Praised after the publication of Cultural Amnesia as one of the finest prose stylists of his generation, Clive James is now, with the publication of this collection, being granted recognition as the poet he has always been.

For much of his long career it was hard to realize that James’s gift for poetry underlay his achievements in other fields. First as a television critic on Fleet Street, and later as a television personality in his own right, he achieved such fame for writing the way he spoke that his poetry was regarded as an idiosyncratic sideline, as if no celebrity could write worthy verse. A conundrum presented itself: how could a serious poet also be a television star? But for James, a duty to the discipline of verse was always fundamental, and his accumulated poetic output became impossible to ignore.

As early as the 1970s, James’s long, mock epic “Peregrine Prykke’s Pilgrimage through the London Literary World” received almost unprecedented attention in his adopted England, while later, his satirical short poem “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” became not only a standard verse quoted at fancy dinner parties but entered the culture as lines to be memorized by unpublished writers everywhere. James was suddenly in the odd position of having written famous poems well before he became a famous poet. Finally, the publication of a volume of his collected verse, The Book of My Enemy, earned him in 2003 the reputation as a serious poet that he has long deserved.

Less inhibited by fixed categories, a new generation of critics has confirmed what James’s public has instinctively known, that he brings his poems to life with all the resources to be found in his prose: wit, imagination, social observation, and a dazzling play of language. In addition, his poems have an unmistakably characteristic rhythm that makes it compulsory to read them aloud. Switching between strict stanzas and free forms as the occasion suits, James brings a compulsively readable coherence to either mode; and always, over and above the binding force of his metrical assurance, there is a lyricism that brings even the plainest statement to extra life, and which often enters deeply into realms of human emotion. His later poems about the tragedy that struck his mother and father, for example, show an intensity of regret that mark his maturity as a poet and bring out his unashamed nostalgia for his homeland, Australia.

Opal Sunset is a treasure chamber of epigrammatic jewels to which the reader will return again and again.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

“A generous helping of [James’s] very best, guaranteed to lift the spirit and raise the eyebrow.”—Billy Collins

Opal Sunset marks the exuberant introduction of Clive James’s poetry to an American audience.

Praised after the publication of Cultural Amnesia as one of the finest prose stylists of his generation, Clive James is now, with the publication of this collection, being granted recognition as the poet he has always been.

For much of his long career it was hard to realize that James’s gift for poetry underlay his achievements in other fields. First as a television critic on Fleet Street, and later as a television personality in his own right, he achieved such fame for writing the way he spoke that his poetry was regarded as an idiosyncratic sideline, as if no celebrity could write worthy verse. A conundrum presented itself: how could a serious poet also be a television star? But for James, a duty to the discipline of verse was always fundamental, and his accumulated poetic output became impossible to ignore.

As early as the 1970s, James’s long, mock epic “Peregrine Prykke’s Pilgrimage through the London Literary World” received almost unprecedented attention in his adopted England, while later, his satirical short poem “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered” became not only a standard verse quoted at fancy dinner parties but entered the culture as lines to be memorized by unpublished writers everywhere. James was suddenly in the odd position of having written famous poems well before he became a famous poet. Finally, the publication of a volume of his collected verse, The Book of My Enemy, earned him in 2003 the reputation as a serious poet that he has long deserved.

Less inhibited by fixed categories, a new generation of critics has confirmed what James’s public has instinctively known, that he brings his poems to life with all the resources to be found in his prose: wit, imagination, social observation, and a dazzling play of language. In addition, his poems have an unmistakably characteristic rhythm that makes it compulsory to read them aloud. Switching between strict stanzas and free forms as the occasion suits, James brings a compulsively readable coherence to either mode; and always, over and above the binding force of his metrical assurance, there is a lyricism that brings even the plainest statement to extra life, and which often enters deeply into realms of human emotion. His later poems about the tragedy that struck his mother and father, for example, show an intensity of regret that mark his maturity as a poet and bring out his unashamed nostalgia for his homeland, Australia.

Opal Sunset is a treasure chamber of epigrammatic jewels to which the reader will return again and again.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Serious Men: A Novel by Clive James
Cover of the book Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Clive James
Cover of the book The Interpersonal Neurobiology of Play: Brain-Building Interventions for Emotional Well-Being by Clive James
Cover of the book The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State by Clive James
Cover of the book Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time by Clive James
Cover of the book The Holocaust on Trial by Clive James
Cover of the book Rocket and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas by Clive James
Cover of the book Growing a Feast: The Chronicle of a Farm-to-Table Meal by Clive James
Cover of the book The Dogs of Avalon: The Race to Save Animals in Peril by Clive James
Cover of the book A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life by Clive James
Cover of the book Origin: A Novel by Clive James
Cover of the book Drawn to the Rhythm: A Passionate Life Reclaimed by Clive James
Cover of the book The Unknown Shore by Clive James
Cover of the book The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles by Clive James
Cover of the book Archangel: Fiction by Clive James
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy