| ||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Minsk for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION
Minsk, Lavinia Greenlaw's third collection, was shortlisted for the 2003 Whitbread Poetry Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection. From London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores questions of place - the childhood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel towards, and those like 'Minsk' which we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw's restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.
From the Back Cover
Minsk is Lavinia Greenlaw’s third collection, and the first since the title poem of A World Where News Travelled Slowly won the Forward Prize for the year’s finest poem of 1997. From London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores questions of place – the childhood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel towards, and those like ‘Minsk’ which we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw’s restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lavinia Greenlaw's previous two collections have shown her to be among the most interesting and gifted poets in Britain, but this collection is outstanding. Some seem to be inspired by her childhood; others by observing animals in London Zoo ("An arrangement of parts, the giraffe/carries himself off, all height, no wieght"). The vigour and wit of her imagery (Blackwater starts "Where the coastline doubles up on itself/as if punched in the gut by the god Meander") is matched by a thoughtful melancholy. The most powerful is The Flight of Geryon, inspired by Canto XVll of Dante's Inferno, which becomes an extended metaphor for the terror implicit in trusting someone. The latter poems describe a period in the Arctic Circle. A striking collection, dominated by themes of travel, loss and hope, it has already been short-listed for the Whitbread Prize for Poetry. It deserves to win.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Sleek and uncompromising
8 April 2005
Format:Paperback
Austere does not necessarily imply cool or aloof, but rather a refined sensibility for the elementary, the unadorned, to see more in less, to perceive truths with clarity. While prior works have been clean, almost scientific, Minsk, while exuding the chill of winter, is nevertheless a vehicle for fantasy, a dreamscape of an imagined land.
In a thoughtful forward, Edward Hirsh discusses the direction of Greenlaw's poetry, her fascination with issues of time and space, but with secret electricity, a current of morality. He states that Greenlaw is a winter writer and her icy landscapes explore questions of place.
Looking back, the past is examined, the bright promise of youth:
"Did we not remember the curse of this place?
How Sundays drank our blood as we watched
dry paint or the dust on the television screen." (Zombies)
Intoxicated by the newness of the world, it is possible to believe in beginnings and ignore reality:
"How people died bursting out of a quiet life,
or from being written into a small world's stories." (Ibid.)
The poet's impressions allow us to reflect, to root around in memories sparked by a phrase, an image. Like art, good poetry is visual and Greenlaw's deft touch challenges form, stating bluntly that this is poetry, these are the words meant to be, in columns or sideways, pulled from the past or fresh as this morning. History and myth loom large, images of a lifetime ago, when stories passed by word of mouth, in rhyme, in song. Complex and stunning, Greenlaw has stepped further out on the ice-encrusted pond, daring it to hold:
"They fold their robes, test each rung,
half-enter a pool pinched in three feet of ice.
Each swims a neat circle, wearing slippers and gloves." (Steam)
Minsk harkens the experience of untested territory, watching, measuring, feeling the cool fingers of winter, a creature walking the lands of myth:
"All the small bones of feet and hands.
What god is this we travel for hours,
getting no further than the tips of his fingers?" (Vaeroy)
Luan Gaines/2005.
In a thoughtful forward, Edward Hirsh discusses the direction of Greenlaw's poetry, her fascination with issues of time and space, but with secret electricity, a current of morality. He states that Greenlaw is a winter writer and her icy landscapes explore questions of place.
Looking back, the past is examined, the bright promise of youth:
"Did we not remember the curse of this place?
How Sundays drank our blood as we watched
dry paint or the dust on the television screen." (Zombies)
Intoxicated by the newness of the world, it is possible to believe in beginnings and ignore reality:
"How people died bursting out of a quiet life,
or from being written into a small world's stories." (Ibid.)
The poet's impressions allow us to reflect, to root around in memories sparked by a phrase, an image. Like art, good poetry is visual and Greenlaw's deft touch challenges form, stating bluntly that this is poetry, these are the words meant to be, in columns or sideways, pulled from the past or fresh as this morning. History and myth loom large, images of a lifetime ago, when stories passed by word of mouth, in rhyme, in song. Complex and stunning, Greenlaw has stepped further out on the ice-encrusted pond, daring it to hold:
"They fold their robes, test each rung,
half-enter a pool pinched in three feet of ice.
Each swims a neat circle, wearing slippers and gloves." (Steam)
Minsk harkens the experience of untested territory, watching, measuring, feeling the cool fingers of winter, a creature walking the lands of myth:
"All the small bones of feet and hands.
What god is this we travel for hours,
getting no further than the tips of his fingers?" (Vaeroy)
Luan Gaines/2005.
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
