There are few new books that I've enjoyed as much as With The First Dream
of Fire - and although I'm not in the least "academic", I suppose I do read
as a specialist reader of poetry - that is, someone who likes poetry and
reads a lot of it.
With me it's the other way around than Douglas - I was familiar with most
of the recent work, but the older work was new to me. And I was excited
about seeing all this work together; I didn't know there was a twenty year
hiatus, but I can absolutely see the logic of the evolution. What does it
for me with all the poems, and more in the later work, is the satisfaction
at all sorts of levels - the combination of a rigorously thinking mind and
restless aesthetic with other "cruder" imperatives - the emotional impact,
and the beauty of the poems - and yes, the review did gloss those aspects
rather, in the interests, I suppose, of stamping out all Irish
sentimentality. For me it's not so much that Trevor eschews the lyric as
completely redefines it.
It _was_ great to see it recognised like that, on other criteria of
"importance" than is usually recognised in the mainstream press. Made me
wish rather wistfully that would happen here...
Best
A
>In answer to your question, no, I don't write (primarily) for academics,
>though if academics enjoy what I do, then good! My criteria for success are
>various and shifting. I like Randolph's earlier remark that he found some
>of the work beautiful. That matters to me. So does emotional impact: if I
>feel something I write is emotionally barren, then I dump it, no matter how
>clever or successful in other terms. But is it necessary that you find
>something I write either beautiful or moving just because I feel it to be?
>I don't see that as being part of the rule-book.
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