Carcanet Press - The Word Pavilion

Description
Excerpt
Author
Reviews

Ah, Thomas Chatterton, I hear
They cut you short,
Those tittering, merry English,
Their phrasing sold, imagination bought.

from 'The Glummonging'

The Word Pavilion is a dazzling
construction: two-tiered, each tier divided into sections which, while they harmonise with one another, constitute structures in them-selves. To a selection of 110 poems from his eight earlier books, Middleton adds the new collection.

The poems have no programme, but their lines, straight or zigzag, crossed or spiral, are connected in the first poem, 'Children's Corner', and again in the penultimate one, with its jocose
intimations of death. Among recurrent motifs are birds, directly in 'Karin's Parakeet', or
allusively in the poem spoken by secretly avian Byzantine soldiers revisiting their fort in the here and now. The humble artist - as demiurge in distress - also figures in a number of poems.

The Word Pavilion is a journey, now exuberant, now straggling, into the finite, on the way to
boundlessness, now fast, now slow, and it ends ('Envoi') at the broken apple tree where a flycatcher has his haunt.

Christopher Middleton, born in Cornwall in 1926, is a poet and translator, especially of German literature. He studied at Merton College, Oxford and held academic positions at the University of Zürich and King’s College London before becoming Professor of Germanic Languages at the University of Texas, Austin. He retired in ... read more

Praise for Christopher Middleton 'a poet with a disconcerting knack of making it new in almost every poem'
John Lucas, New Statesman 'His work is at once rich and sparse, elegantly economic in its subtle shifts from discrete object to discrete object, yet, by contrast with mainstream English realism, striking for the boldness and brio of its imaginings.'
Terry Eagleton, Stand 'Metrically inventive and various, these poems are remarkably alive to "the unknown thing beside us", they listen for "the due sound", and, as if watching birds, register "the timed flight of words". A motto for reading Middleton's work might be: purify the source, then trust to luck.'
Denis Donoghue, London Review of Books 'Middleton is amongst the most consistently inventive, original, and audacious of the so-called 'experimental' or 'innovative' poets of these past twenty-five years.'
August Kleinzahler, Threepenny Review 'The poet's ancestry, his Englishness, is relegated without denial. But the movement, whether it is generated in America, Provence or Cappadocia, is always of encounter...if an eroticism, with the inner and the outer, a profound in-touchness with the multiplicities of existence... a mark of all important poets'
Tom Lowenstein 'Poems, translations, essays - Christopher Middletonâs are among the most visited books on my shelves; always dependable for re-exciting the possibilities of language.'
Jennie Feldman

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The Word Pavilion Christopher Middleton Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (220 pages) (Pub. May 2001) 9781857545128 Out of Stock Description Excerpt Author Reviews Ah, Thomas Chatterton, I hear They cut you short, Those tittering, merry English, Their phrasing sold, imagination bought. from 'The Glummonging' The Word Pavilion is a dazzling construction: two-tiered, each tier divided into sections which, while they harmonise with one another, constitute structures in them-selves. To a selection of 110 poems from his eight earlier books, Middleton adds the new collection. The poems have no programme, but their lines, straight or zigzag, crossed or spiral, are connected in the first poem, 'Children's Corner', and again in the penultimate one, with its jocose intimations of death. Among recurrent motifs are birds, directly in 'Karin's Parakeet', or allusively in the poem spoken by secretly avian Byzantine soldiers revisiting their fort in the here and now. The humble artist - as demiurge in distress - also figures in a number of poems. The Word Pavilion is a journey, now exuberant, now straggling, into the finite, on the way to boundlessness, now fast, now slow, and it ends ('Envoi') at the broken apple tree where a flycatcher has his haunt. Christopher Middleton, born in Cornwall in 1926, is a poet and translator, especially of German literature. He studied at Merton College, Oxford and held academic positions at the University of Zürich and King’s College London before becoming Professor of Germanic Languages at the University of Texas, Austin. He retired in ... read more Praise for Christopher Middleton 'a poet with a disconcerting knack of making it new in almost every poem' John Lucas, New Statesman 'His work is at once rich and sparse, elegantly economic in its subtle shifts from discrete object to discrete object, yet, by contrast with mainstream English realism, striking for the boldness and brio of its imaginings.' Terry Eagleton, Stand 'Metrically inventive and various, these poems are remarkably alive to "the unknown thing beside us", they listen for "the due sound", and, as if watching birds, register "the timed flight of words". A motto for reading Middleton's work might be: purify the source, then trust to luck.' Denis Donoghue, London Review of Books 'Middleton is amongst the most consistently inventive, original, and audacious of the so-called 'experimental' or 'innovative' poets of these past twenty-five years.' August Kleinzahler, Threepenny Review 'The poet's ancestry, his Englishness, is relegated without denial. But the movement, whether it is generated in America, Provence or Cappadocia, is always of encounter...if an eroticism, with the inner and the outer, a profound in-touchness with the multiplicities of existence... a mark of all important poets' Tom Lowenstein 'Poems, translations, essays - Christopher Middletonâs are among the most visited books on my shelves; always dependable for re-exciting the possibilities of language.' Jennie Feldman	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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