A review by micromys
Deaths of the Poets by Michael Symmons Roberts, Paul Farley

4.0

I wasn't sure at first; as the initial chapters slipped by I was unsure if this was some form of ghoulish travel writing masquerading as an exploration of what drives some of us to write poetry. But as the final days of pairs of dead poets were presented interwoven, so some notion of what a poet is, and what drives the poetic instinct came to the fore. There is poignancy here, a degree of social commentary and the touching insight into lives that were so often full of the ordinary, domestic and routine.