Kevin Saving reflects on depictions of John Keats in two books published to mark the poet’s bi-centenary in 2021
authors
Blaise Cendrars, The Invention of Life – Eric Robertson. Review by Alan Price. “He repeatedly expressed impatience at the demands of being a writer, preferring life spent outdoors, travelling or in the company of others to the solitary confinement of the writing desk. Cendrars was widely photographed, most famously by Robert Doisneau, but never at a writing desk.”
Eric Robertson
Poetry review – IS THIS LIKE A POEM?: John Forth is reminded of Paul McLoughlin’s distinctive voice while reading this collection of posthumously published poems
Poetry review – FAREWELL PERFORMANCE: Paul McDonald looks back with pleasure on the collected later poems of Vernon Scannell
HIDDEN SUN: James McGonigal explores James Fountain’s perceptive study of the poet Joseph Macleod
An Earl’s Court Miscellany. FinboroughFrontier online content. Review by Barbara Lewis. The ever-inventive Finborough Theatre has combined its return to real-life drama with an enlightened decision to carry on delivering original online work for free that surely can only enhance one of the strongest off-West End brands.
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, Victoria and Albert Museum. Review by Carla Scarano. .”..a marvellous but unsettling journey through the origin of Alice’s stories and their adaptations and reinventions in films, art, music, fashion, photography and design.”
Poetry review – POEMS TO NIGHT: Roger Caldwell reviews a new translation by Will Stone of some of Rilke’s less well-know poems
HOUSMAN’S NAME AND NATURE OF POETRY: Andrew Keanie considers Michael Cullup’s study of Housman’s Leslie Stephen Lecture.
THE MIRROR & THE LIGHT. The final part of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy came out just before the pandemic: a year later Graham Buchan looks back on the whole sequence.
MONICA JONES, PHILIP LARKIN AND ME: Kevin Saving considers John Sutherland’s recent perspective on Philip Larkin’s love life
Simenon The Man, The Books, The Films by Barry Forshaw. Review by Alan Price. I came very late in the day to the works of Georges Simenon. It was five years ago whilst talking, with a friend, about the early 1960’s BBC TV series of Maigret when I picked up my first Maigret novel. It was The Misty Harbour (1932). This story of a disturbed man found wandering the streets of Paris, with no recollection of who he is or how he got there was remarkably compelling.
By Alan Price • authors, books, television, writing, year 2021 • Tags: Alan Price, authors, books, television, writing