George Szirtes
Impeccably Dressed
Beautiful Inventions
By John Fuller
Secker & Warburg 63pp £4
Waiting For The Music
By John Fuller
Salamander Press 29pp £2.50
There is something in the admirable work of John Fuller that makes one feel slightly uneasy. For there is no question but the work is admirable: ‘teasing, touching, mysterious, immaculate’ as the blurb to The Beautiful Inventions says, and it is perfectly true. John Fuller’s poems are a marvellous text book of all the graces and his new book does not fail us in this respect. He teaches us to be delicate without being prissy, racy without being vulgar, lyrical without being fulsome. His language is resonant, his cadences satisfying: his command is in all respects enviable. The moral centre has been pointed out, the similarities to Auden much remarked on. Perhaps one should just tell this sense of uneasiness to go hang. But let us articulate it first.
One wonders in the first place whether the Muse is such a ‘sensible girl’ as he pretends and whether he has serious thoughts of joining people in the street where, as he put it, ‘suffering and truth must meet’. All his verse exhibits a distrust of those who would want
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
Coleridge was fifty-four lines into ‘Kubla Khan’ before a knock on the door disturbed him. He blamed his unfinished poem on ‘a person on business from Porlock’.
Who was this arch-interrupter? Joanna Kavenna goes looking for the person from Porlock.
Joanna Kavenna - Do Not Disturb
Joanna Kavenna: Do Not Disturb
literaryreview.co.uk
Russia’s recent efforts to destabilise the Baltic states have increased enthusiasm for the EU in these places. With Euroscepticism growing in countries like France and Germany, @owenmatth wonders whether Europe’s salvation will come from its periphery.
Owen Matthews - Sea of Troubles
Owen Matthews: Sea of Troubles - Baltic: The Future of Europe by Oliver Moody
literaryreview.co.uk
Many laptop workers will find Vincenzo Latronico’s PERFECTION sends shivers of uncomfortable recognition down their spine. I wrote about why for @Lit_Review
https://literaryreview.co.uk/hashtag-living