lokster71's review against another edition
3.0
This was Louis MacNeice's final poetry collection, published in 1963 shortly before his death. MacNeice himself said the poems were "ranging from bleak observations to thumbnail nightmares..." And there's some truth in that, although I think there's less bleakness than MacNeice thought.
Sometimes he's surprisingly playful - with 'Chateau Jackson' for example - with rhyme, even if not with content.
I like MacNeice's poetry. I find it hard, with poetry, to explain why I like something. I have said this many times before. I don't have the academic language to analyse poetry technically. I tend to react to it on a base level, as I do to art. The technique must be part of it, but it is the way the words work that affects me. It is the emotional impact that counts to me. Sometimes poets are clearly technically superb, but their work leaves me cold. It's like admiring a building because it is impressively put together without feeling anything when you are in it and around it.
MacNeice knows how to use the power of language to craft a response. It's not always easy or straightforward but it is worth the time it takes to break it down. These aren't opaque or difficult in the way that I found Pasternak (as an example) but they aren't easy either. That's not a bad thing. Sometimes we want to have to earn our joy.
Sometimes he's surprisingly playful - with 'Chateau Jackson' for example - with rhyme, even if not with content.
I like MacNeice's poetry. I find it hard, with poetry, to explain why I like something. I have said this many times before. I don't have the academic language to analyse poetry technically. I tend to react to it on a base level, as I do to art. The technique must be part of it, but it is the way the words work that affects me. It is the emotional impact that counts to me. Sometimes poets are clearly technically superb, but their work leaves me cold. It's like admiring a building because it is impressively put together without feeling anything when you are in it and around it.
MacNeice knows how to use the power of language to craft a response. It's not always easy or straightforward but it is worth the time it takes to break it down. These aren't opaque or difficult in the way that I found Pasternak (as an example) but they aren't easy either. That's not a bad thing. Sometimes we want to have to earn our joy.
More...