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Selected Poems book cover
Selected Poems
1980
First Published
4.24
Average Rating
120
Number of Pages
When T.S. Eliot wrote of W.S. Graham's collection, The Nightfishing, that 'some of these poems - by their sustained power, their emotional depth and maturity and their superb technical skill - may well be among the more important poetical achievements of our time', he could not have stated the truth more clearly. Graham's career, which ended with his death in 1986, followed a pattern of steady refinement of vision and ever-deepening enquiry. In Selected Poems, taken from both the publications of his lifetime and posthumous volumes, and containing at least one major poem never collected before, the full stature of this still insufficiently appreciated genius is revealed.
Avg Rating
4.24
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29
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2 STARS
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Author

W.S. Graham
W.S. Graham
Author · 6 books

William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet who was often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime; however, partly thanks to the support of Harold Pinter, his work was eventually acknowledged. He was represented in the second edition of the Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse (1962) and the Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (2001). Graham left school to become an apprentice draughtsman and then studied structural engineering at Stow College, Glasgow. He was awarded a bursary to study literature for a year at Newbattle Abbey College in 1938. Graham spent the war years working at a number of jobs in Scotland and Ireland before moving to Cornwall in 1944. His first book, Cage Without Grievance was published in 1942. The 1940s were prolific years for Graham, and he published four more books during that decade. These were The Seven Journeys (1944), 2ND Poems (1945), The Voyages of Alfred Wallis (1948) and The White Threshold (1949).

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