Author Description
David Harsent (b. 1942) won the 2005 Forward Prize for Legion, which was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and the TS Eliot Award; he has also been the recipient of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, an Eric Gregory Award, two Arts Council bursaries and a Society of Authors Fellowship. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Distinguished Writing Fellow at Hallam, Sheffield University. His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a number of composers, but most often with Harrison Birtwistle, and has been performed at the Royal Opera House, the South Bank Centre, Carnegie Hall and the Proms. In his introduction to this recording, Harsent describes his "tendency to work often in sequences that make use of a lyrical vocabulary to frame a broken but substantial narrative." The poems on this CD give a sense of the sequences from which they are drawn, their subjects ranging from aspects of the commedia dell'Arte Punch to the Trickster hare in Lepus. They show that his poetry is ever open to human darkness, whether in the imagined war-zones of Legion or in Sprinting from the Graveyard, his versions of poems written by Goran Simic while under siege in Sarajevo. Harsent is justly praised for his idiosyncratic use of formal skills: his ability to spin a poem over the same few near-rhymes, placing them internally or at unexpected line-breaks, as in the poem beginning "I perch on a Bauhaus-style chrome-and-raffia / chair", from Marriage - a sequence that offers a close and startling view of what Harsent calls 'the mysteries of domesticity'.
Menrva's Summary
THE PULSE
The collection centers on the fractured, often dark manifestations of the archetypal trickster figure, specifically the Punch character, as he navigates a world of shifting identities and domestic unease. Through a series of lyrical sequences, the poet explores the tension between public performance and private isolation. The narrative framework utilizes a non-linear approach, drawing on the commedia dell'Arte tradition to examine human behavior under duress. The poems operate within a landscape where the boundaries between the mythic and the mundane are consistently blurred.
INSIDE THE PAGES
- Exploration of the Punch archetype as a vessel for human darkness
- Use of formal, near-rhyme structures to create rhythmic tension
- Integration of domestic themes with surreal or mythic imagery
- Collaboration-inspired narrative sequences
- Focus on the Trickster figure across various cultural iterations
- Precise, controlled line breaks that dictate the pace of reading
- Engagement with historical and contemporary war-zone imagery
- Examination of the mysteries inherent in everyday domestic life
THE COLLECTIVE ECHO
Readers and critics frequently note the technical precision of Harsent's work, particularly his mastery of internal rhyme and structural control. Discussion often centers on the poet's ability to maintain a consistent, somber atmosphere while shifting between disparate subjects like the commedia dell'Arte and modern urban life. Many highlight the collection's focus on the darker aspects of human nature, noting that the poems avoid sentimentality in favor of a stark, observational clarity. The balance between the lyrical vocabulary and the broken narrative sequences is often cited as a defining feature of the poet's style. Readers interested in formalist poetry that does not sacrifice emotional weight will find this collection particularly engaging.
Page Count:
64
Publication Date:
1984-12-06
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0192119664
ISBN-13:
9780192119667
Poetry
Lyric poetry
Contemporary Poetry
British literature
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