Nine Lessons From The Dark
  • Published: 15 November 2003
  • ISBN: 9780224063852
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $27.99

Nine Lessons From The Dark

Formats & editions
EBook
31 Dec 2012
Paperback
15 Nov 2003
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Powerful new poetry collection from the author of Ulverton.

Adam Thorpe's fourth collection continues his engagement with history: the living continuum that connects us with our near and distant past, nourishing and illuminating our present. Here are traces left of presence: Indian scratchings on rock, the nail-marks of destroyed frescoes, spoken fragments of war memories - petroglyphs that function as both memorials and re-awakenings, traceable with the finger of the imagination. And here, too, are images of the stilled, the stopped life: a snowed-up village, the paralysed victim of motor-neurone disease, a soft drink fermented in an old village cafe.

From this rueful equilibrium of mid-life, Thorpe circles his own personal history, allowing regret and anticipation their Janus-like say. These are erudite, generous poems, formally versatile yet rich in startlingly original observation and a natural lyric grace. Performing his unique archaeology on lives lived, Adam Thorpe once again displays the range of his imagination and the depth of his humanity.
  • Published: 15 November 2003
  • ISBN: 9780224063852
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $27.99
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About the author

Adam Thorpe

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, appeared in 1992 and he has published two books of stories and ten further novels, most recently Missing Fay (2017), and six poetry collections.


www.adamthorpe.net

Also by Adam Thorpe

Words From the Wall
Missing Fay
Flight
Voluntary
Hodd
The Standing Pool
Between Each Breath
See all

Praise for Nine Lessons From The Dark

It's hard to imagine greater skill or concision. There are never going to be many poets in any generation who leave you strapped for superlatives; excitingly, Thorpe is one of them

Robert Potts, Literary Review

Erudite, observant, an artist with the language

Martyn Crucefix, Poetry Review

Verve and intelligence - a beauty of feeling and language

Douglas Dunn, Evening Standard

He is a powerful lyric poet, able to evoke place in the manner of Geoffrey Hill

John Kinsella, Observer

A writer with exceptional gifts

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

Elegiac, haunting landscape, a refusal to give redundant biographical detail, yet the feeling of genuine experience... masterly

Times Literary Supplement

Excellent...Thorpe's poems are finely scored for the voice, but they go beyond the recognisable into the mystical

Peter Porter, Observer