Publisher Description

Deceptively relaxed in tone, these verse letters - sometime serious, sometimes whimsical - are addressed to people who, for various reasons, have been of importance in Neil Curry's life. Ranging from Angela Carter to the Venerable Bede and from Odysseus to Gilbert White's tortoise, they cover topics as diverse as smallpox and the paintings of Vermeer, landscape-gardening, the King James Bible and Eddie Stobart's lorries on the M6. There has not been a collection of verse letters of this nature since the Epistles of the Roman poet Horace and, fittingly, it is to Horace that the final letter is addressed, partly by way of apology.

Author Biography

Neil Curry has lived for many years in the Lake District. Among his poetry collections are Ships in Bottles, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, Walking to Santiago, in which he recounts his 500-mile walk along the medieval pilgrim route, and Other Rooms: New & Selected Poems. He has also published The Fable of the World, translations from the French poet Jules Supervielle. He edited the Collected Poems of Norman Nicholson and has published studies of Christopher Smart, Alexander Pope and George Herbert. He has recently completed a book on William Cowper.

Review

"A great and inventive poet, he stands alongside Hopkins in his exploration of the frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed mountains of the mind." Grevel Lindop, "The London Magazine""

Review Quote

"A great and inventive poet, he stands alongside Hopkins in his exploration of the 'frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed' mountains of the mind." --Grevel Lindop, The London Magazine

Details