Peter Scupham
Home & Away
One Lark, One Horse
By Michael Hofmann
Faber & Faber 90pp £14.99
Green Noise
By Jean Sprackland
Jonathan Cape 52pp £10
The Scottish Ambassador
By Robert Crawford
Jonathan Cape 54pp £10
One lark, one horse? The epigraph for Michael Hofmann’s new collection is a jest quoted in Carole Angier’s biography of Primo Levi. Goldberg sells pâté – lark pâté. Cohen asks how he can afford to. Goldberg says he adds a bit of horse. ‘How much horse?’ ‘One lark, one horse’ comes the answer.
Now sixty-one, Hofmann plays with ageing in poems that act as a kind of antechamber to Larkin’s ‘The Old Fools’. In ‘LV’ he conjures up the years ‘of stiff joints and the small pains/that will do me in’; in ‘On Forgetting’ he describes how ‘My spelling isn’t what it was.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
In fact, anyone handwringing about the current state of children's fiction can look at over 20 years' worth of my children's book round-ups for @Lit_Review, all FREE to view, where you will find many gems
Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books
Book reviews by Philip Womack
literaryreview.co.uk
Juggling balls, dead birds, lottery tickets, hypochondriac journalists. All the makings of an excellent collection. Loved Camille Bordas’s One Sun Only in the latest @Lit_Review
Natalie Perman - Normal People
Natalie Perman: Normal People - One Sun Only by Camille Bordas
literaryreview.co.uk
Despite adopting a pseudonym, George Sand lived much of her life in public view.
Lucasta Miller asks whether Sand’s fame has obscured her work.
Lucasta Miller - Life, Work & Adoration
Lucasta Miller: Life, Work & Adoration - Becoming George: The Invention of George Sand by Fiona Sampson
literaryreview.co.uk