Edgeways Home

now published


Stalking the A4

poems by

Christopher Morgan


Stalking the A4 is Christopher Morgan’s second not very big collection in more than thirty years, so he is not a prolific poet. Morgan only makes poetry when he has something to say—an occasional poet who does not manufacture occasions—and rejects more of his work than he publishes. I offer a closely connected reason why I have found him for many years one of the few contemporary poets who haunts me. He is the best practitioner of English verse I have read in our time. Especially in the twenty-first century it is not faint praise to call a writer a supreme master of the iambic pentameter, and Morgan’s fluency in other forms is amazing. Who would notice before it is pointed out that the first of these poems has nineteen lines on only two rhymes? But Christopher Morgan should not be offered as a poets’ poet, to be relished only by connoisseurs of verse: these poems are moving and often funny as well as having immediate appeal.     Ian Robinson

Two of the poems collected in Stalking the A4 can be found elsewhere on this site: “Colossus” in Words in Edgeways no. 5, and “Boy from Bratislava” as an Edgeways Column, no. 18, 11 July 2008.


*   *   *

D. H. Lawrence: Selected Criticism

edited with Introduction and Notes by

Brian Crick and Michael DiSanto

978 0 9559996 1 1, 342 pages royal 8vo, paperback, £14.40

No selection of Lawrence’s criticism is currently in print, so this book supplies an obvious need. Lawrence is the best English critic there has ever been or is ever likely to be! Not that he is always right or has said the last word on anything (such is not the nature of great criticism) but if anyone ever fulfilled the Arnold idea of “seeing the object as in itself it really is” Lawrence did, and his penetration and depth of judgement are matchless. Lawrence is particularly necessary at the present time as a living rebuke to academic criticism that loses touch both with the art it discusses and what Wordsworth called the “language of men”. Lawrence single-mindedly and also, often, very funnily, concentrates on what matters.
        This selection where possible gives entire essays not fragments. It is bigger than earlier selections and not restricted to criticism of literature. It includes, complete, Pornography and Obscenity, the Introduction to his Paintings and A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. For contents page and to order click on Shop.

THE BRYNMILL PRESS LTD
and
EDGEWAYS BOOKS

Go to shop for easy secure ordering.




The Brynmill Press Ltd was started in 1970 by Ian Robinson and David Sims.
   For nearly forty years we have been publishing criticism of literature and language, in magazines and books, in many forms including poetry and fiction.
   The two most recent magazines were web publications and can be found by clicking on the Magazine and Columns buttons above.
   Brynmill also publishes some of the central English books including the Homilies and is the leading contemporary publisher of works by the third great English fabulist, T. F. Powys.


Go to store

Our books are all available post free from our online bookshop.


Alternatively, books can be ordered at any bookshop or by post direct from the publisher: sterling cheque with order please, payable to The Brynmill Press Ltd. Click here for order form.

All orders are sent post free worldwide

packets outside Europe by surface mail:
airmail delivery is available from Amazon.co.uk.

Trade inquiries welcome





copyright © 2010 Richard Gill

An Epiphany Poem

The Ravenna Magi

In Phrygian caps three Magi stride—
Dark-bearded, young, white-haird and old—
Beneath their feet bright flowers wave;
Above date palms the skies are gold;
Ahead, upon the Mother’'s knee
Reigns One who makes the sky and sea.

                                             Richard Gill





Edgeways Books is a division of
The Brynmill Press Ltd.

news


The first Edgeways ebooks now online! And the first three are free!

*

Translation
vs
Paraphrase
by A. C. Capey

Mr Capey’s long-promised criticism of twentieth-century Bible translations



*

Memories
of F. R. Leavis
by David Matthews

Mr Matthews’s memories of more than sixty years, going back to the great days of Downing, are a fresh testimony to the greatest English critic of modern times.


*

Is the Bible a Book?
or
Against Ur-texts
by Ian Robinson

An essay supplementary to Who Killed the Bible? about the unity of Holy Scripture


*

To read or download click on Web Texts at the top of this page.

*   *   *

*   *   *

There is More

poems by

Frances Blodwell

The first limited edition is now all distributed. After a number of appreciative responses from readers we are hoping to persuade a mainstream publisher to bring out a trade edition, and if not we shall do a paperback ourselves.


*   *   *

We have given up our weekly column but if comments worth making come our way we sometimes post them on this page. See a comment at the bottom of the middle column. These occasional remarks are collected with the Columns.

*