Shortlisted for the T S Eliot Poetry Prize 2014.
In The Stairwell, his tenth collection, Michael Longley's themes and forms reach a new intensity. The second part of the book is a powerful sequence of elegies for his twin brother, Peter, and the dominant mood elsewhere is elegiac. The title poem begins: 'I have been thinking about the music for my funeral ...' The two parts are also linked by Homer. Longley is well-known for his Homeric versions, and the Iliad is a presiding presence - both in poems about the Great War and in the range of imagery that gives his twin's death a mythic dimension. Yet funeral music can be life-affirming. Longley has built this collection on intricate doublings, not only when he explores the tensions of twinship. The psychologically suggestive word 'stairwell' is itself an ambiguous compound. These poems encompass birth as well as death, childhood and age, nature and art, the animal and human worlds, tenderness and violence, battlefield and 'homeland'.
| ISBN: | 9780224101684 |
| Publication date: | 14th August 2014 |
| Author: | Michael Longley |
| Publisher: | Jonathan Cape Ltd an imprint of Vintage |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 69 pages |
| Primary Genre | Poetry |
| Recommendations: |
Shortlisted for the T S Eliot Poetry Prize 2014.
In The Stairwell, his tenth collection, Michael Longley's themes and forms reach a new intensity. The second part of the book is a powerful sequence of elegies for his twin brother, Peter, and the dominant mood elsewhere is elegiac. The title poem begins: 'I have been thinking about the music for my funeral ...' The two parts are also linked by Homer. Longley is well-known for his Homeric versions, and the Iliad is a presiding presence - both in poems about the Great War and in the range of imagery that gives his twin's death a mythic dimension. Yet funeral music can be life-affirming. Longley has built this collection on intricate doublings, not only when he explores the tensions of twinship. The psychologically suggestive word 'stairwell' is itself an ambiguous compound. These poems encompass birth as well as death, childhood and age, nature and art, the animal and human worlds, tenderness and violence, battlefield and 'homeland'.
The Stairwell features in the following genres: Poetry, eBooks of the Month, Biography, Literature and Literary studies, Recommendations
The Stairwell is available in Paperback
The Stairwell was written by Michael Longley and published by Jonathan Cape Ltd an imprint of Vintage
The Stairwell has 69 pages
£11.70
