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Collected Poems
Spanning several decades of her life, multiple continents, and significant events, this collection of Hope Mirrlees’s poetry includes previously unpublished work and the modernist writer’s later poems and essays, written circa 1920. Also included is the full text of Paris: A Poem, a daylong, psycho-geographical flânerie through the streets and metro tunnels of post-World War I Paris. Groundbreaking and illuminating, this volume is a testament to Mirrlees’s contribution to 20th-century poetry.
- GenresPoetry
143 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2011
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About the author
Hope Mirrlees
13 books131 followersHope Mirrlees (1887-1978) was a British translator, poet and novelist. She published three novels in her lifetime, Madeleine: One of Love’s Jansenists (1919), The Counterplot (1924) and the fantasy novel Lud-in-the-Mist (1926); three volumes of poetry, including Paris: A Poem (1919), described by the critic Julia Briggs as "modernism's lost masterpiece"; and A Fly in Amber (1962), a biography of the British antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 8, 2017
Who wants one too?
"I wish my library had got a skull!
(All libraries should have grave furniture-)
Whose, whether that of poet, king or trull
Would not affect its erudite allure,
Like Latin in its logical bone-structure,
And which time’s accidence cannot annul.”
- From, A Skull.
I think a decent library needs a strong sense of character. I have all sorts of random odds and ends around mine. I do refer to my book collection as a library now as I have around 1200+ books. It grows by the day. Seriously though, I have hoarding issues. When I’m forty, I’m not sure where I’m going to keep my (by then) thousands of books.
Anyway, Hope Mirrlees is a drastically under read poet. This poem I quoted here is relatively simple in content. Her real masterpiece is a poem called Paris, which I would argue is just as experimental as James Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s even often recognised by academics as a precursor to T.S Elliot’s The Waste Land. So why such low ratings here on goodreads when compared to other works like this? I’m not sure. Outside the realms of university study, Mirrlees, like many others, seems to have slipped through the net.
Paris is a poem about a city. But how do you capture an entire city in poetry? First you need to decide what defines a city. But how do you do that? One person’s version will be different to another; there can never be a fixed definition of such a place. Cities change and they mean different things to different people. So how do you get this into words? It’s rather simple really, capture and entire volley of voices. Have them fight against each other and create an obfuscating effect of randomness.
A city is a place of noise; it is a place of hustle and bustle where there are countless people going about their business. Everybody has a story to tell, and everybody has a head full of ideas. Voices make up a city. And in this poem there are many. They all come together and blurt out whatever is happening. They speak with different levels of urgency and talk about different things; thus, an entire cultural overview of the city is captured. We hear about the food and the drink, we hear about the political events and art. But we also hear about what makes Paris great, her history and her triumphs. This poem is a celebration: it’s a love song to Paris.
Here’s a link to Paris in case anybody’s interested in reading it, and perhaps seeing exactly what I’m talking about here: http://hopemirrlees.com/texts/Paris_H...
If you do read it, comment and let me know what you think! :)
"I wish my library had got a skull!
(All libraries should have grave furniture-)
Whose, whether that of poet, king or trull
Would not affect its erudite allure,
Like Latin in its logical bone-structure,
And which time’s accidence cannot annul.”
- From, A Skull.
I think a decent library needs a strong sense of character. I have all sorts of random odds and ends around mine. I do refer to my book collection as a library now as I have around 1200+ books. It grows by the day. Seriously though, I have hoarding issues. When I’m forty, I’m not sure where I’m going to keep my (by then) thousands of books.
Anyway, Hope Mirrlees is a drastically under read poet. This poem I quoted here is relatively simple in content. Her real masterpiece is a poem called Paris, which I would argue is just as experimental as James Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s even often recognised by academics as a precursor to T.S Elliot’s The Waste Land. So why such low ratings here on goodreads when compared to other works like this? I’m not sure. Outside the realms of university study, Mirrlees, like many others, seems to have slipped through the net.
Paris is a poem about a city. But how do you capture an entire city in poetry? First you need to decide what defines a city. But how do you do that? One person’s version will be different to another; there can never be a fixed definition of such a place. Cities change and they mean different things to different people. So how do you get this into words? It’s rather simple really, capture and entire volley of voices. Have them fight against each other and create an obfuscating effect of randomness.
A city is a place of noise; it is a place of hustle and bustle where there are countless people going about their business. Everybody has a story to tell, and everybody has a head full of ideas. Voices make up a city. And in this poem there are many. They all come together and blurt out whatever is happening. They speak with different levels of urgency and talk about different things; thus, an entire cultural overview of the city is captured. We hear about the food and the drink, we hear about the political events and art. But we also hear about what makes Paris great, her history and her triumphs. This poem is a celebration: it’s a love song to Paris.
Here’s a link to Paris in case anybody’s interested in reading it, and perhaps seeing exactly what I’m talking about here: http://hopemirrlees.com/texts/Paris_H...
If you do read it, comment and let me know what you think! :)
Read
October 19, 2021Wow. I expected Mirrlees' poetry to take after "Paris: A Poem" but it was, for the most part, quite traditional and religiously devout. Mirrlees is such a mystery to me and so endlessly fascinating. She could speak five languages and appalled Virginia Woolf by wearing stockings of a different color every night to dinner with a matching wreath in her hair. While this collection wasn't what I expected, Mirrlees won me over by alluding to Simone Weil and Berthe Morisot.
"If a poet weeps when a rose fades,
It is because he thinks of pretty maids.
Roses are symbols, and each rose that dies
Reminds us of the things they symbolize.
But Maart was nothing but a little cat,
And so I mourn his death, and only that" (The Death of Cats and Roses, 25). 🥺
"If a poet weeps when a rose fades,
It is because he thinks of pretty maids.
Roses are symbols, and each rose that dies
Reminds us of the things they symbolize.
But Maart was nothing but a little cat,
And so I mourn his death, and only that" (The Death of Cats and Roses, 25). 🥺
December 22, 2025
hope mirrlees
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 21, 2023
Note to Self Book Reviews...
Note to Self: asterisks can be sexy
Another university text (I wrote an essay about lesbian ghosts based on this poem and somehow successfully argued that the Paris Metro is symbolism for a vagina. Yeah. I don't know how I swindled that either.)
I wish I'd known about Mirrlees much MUCH earlier. Her typography is beautiful, experimental and not to mention, it pre-dates T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' (suck it, mate!) Mirrlees expertly crafts allusion upon allusion and creates a world in which Paris becomes less of a city and more of a feeling, a presence, an expression. It's the strangest thing. Mirrlees comes into her power through her modernist masterpiece, 'Paris' and demonstrates what poetry can do given half the chance. However, I removed one-star because upon reading the rest of her poems, they were oversimplified and a little disappointing.
I will never forget 'Paris.' It is a wonderful exploration of how we can become part of urban landscapes and simultaneously how a modern landscape can emote.
4/5 stars.
Note to Self: asterisks can be sexy
Another university text (I wrote an essay about lesbian ghosts based on this poem and somehow successfully argued that the Paris Metro is symbolism for a vagina. Yeah. I don't know how I swindled that either.)
I wish I'd known about Mirrlees much MUCH earlier. Her typography is beautiful, experimental and not to mention, it pre-dates T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land' (suck it, mate!) Mirrlees expertly crafts allusion upon allusion and creates a world in which Paris becomes less of a city and more of a feeling, a presence, an expression. It's the strangest thing. Mirrlees comes into her power through her modernist masterpiece, 'Paris' and demonstrates what poetry can do given half the chance. However, I removed one-star because upon reading the rest of her poems, they were oversimplified and a little disappointing.
I will never forget 'Paris.' It is a wonderful exploration of how we can become part of urban landscapes and simultaneously how a modern landscape can emote.
4/5 stars.
November 28, 2021
I'm presently deeply involved in Peter Howarth's Cambridge Introduction to Modernist Poetry, and its first chapter focusses on Hope Mirlees' 'recently rediscovered' proto-modernist masterpiece, Paris: a Poem. Written in 1919, it anticipates the scope and mood of Eliot's Wasteland and many of the stylistic devices of Pound's Cantos. It seemed a natural enough thing to pick up a copy of Mirlees' collected poetry as an accompaniment to Howarth's book.
The consequence was ultimately disappointing. The remainder of her poetry, none of which saw publication until the 60/70s, proved to be rather more regressive with none of the revolutionary ambition of Paris. The remainder of her work turned out to be the sort of poetry that I've recently realised I have no longer any time for; regularly metered and rhyming doing violence to meaning through archaisms and infelicities of syntax, crammed full of classical allusions. There is the constant sense in her later work that she is trying to convince herself that she really is as clever as her Edwardian Oxbridge education entitled her to be. The subjects of these poems are flowers, pets and conceits based obscure on obscure points of Catholic dogma, fairies and a reluctance to commit to human love. They are devoid of philosophical content or psychological acuity. They don't even have the literary, historical sweep of Paris. They say nothing that could not have been said just as well in plainer language. They are essentially linguistic wallpaper.
Nonetheless, the extensive scholarly introduction by Sandeep Parmar and the annotations help to construct a vivid conception of Mirlees' literary milieu and of the outlook of her generation of privileged hyper-aesthetes. This in itself was very helpful in my own quest to understand, just what is poetry; just want kind of poetry really moves me; just what kind of poetry would I like to write.
Paris, is impressive (to my sensibility). Even more so when read in conjunction with the notes in the appendix compiled by Julia Briggs. The rest were traditional and even in terms of that tradition of centuries of effort to replicate the perceived perfection of classical models, were humdrum and formulaic. However, for me at least the total contents of this book were instructive from a critical perspective.
The consequence was ultimately disappointing. The remainder of her poetry, none of which saw publication until the 60/70s, proved to be rather more regressive with none of the revolutionary ambition of Paris. The remainder of her work turned out to be the sort of poetry that I've recently realised I have no longer any time for; regularly metered and rhyming doing violence to meaning through archaisms and infelicities of syntax, crammed full of classical allusions. There is the constant sense in her later work that she is trying to convince herself that she really is as clever as her Edwardian Oxbridge education entitled her to be. The subjects of these poems are flowers, pets and conceits based obscure on obscure points of Catholic dogma, fairies and a reluctance to commit to human love. They are devoid of philosophical content or psychological acuity. They don't even have the literary, historical sweep of Paris. They say nothing that could not have been said just as well in plainer language. They are essentially linguistic wallpaper.
Nonetheless, the extensive scholarly introduction by Sandeep Parmar and the annotations help to construct a vivid conception of Mirlees' literary milieu and of the outlook of her generation of privileged hyper-aesthetes. This in itself was very helpful in my own quest to understand, just what is poetry; just want kind of poetry really moves me; just what kind of poetry would I like to write.
Paris, is impressive (to my sensibility). Even more so when read in conjunction with the notes in the appendix compiled by Julia Briggs. The rest were traditional and even in terms of that tradition of centuries of effort to replicate the perceived perfection of classical models, were humdrum and formulaic. However, for me at least the total contents of this book were instructive from a critical perspective.
September 26, 2021
Beautiful poetry. The much-heralded Paris was brilliant, as were the comprehensive notes to it, but much of Mirrlees' skill lies in the restraint of her later poems- you can see the influence of modernism with use of odd meter and caesurae, yet there is a maturity to these poems which I didn't see in Paris. They're both brilliant in different ways, and create a beautiful portrait of a writer and her poetic ouevre.
However, some of the selected essays weren't as great as what preceded them- the classical influence of Jane Harrison (and Mirrlees' own classical studies at Newnham) is apparent, but the essays could be more concise, lose some of the classical references, and generally be more readable.
One of the high points of this book was the brilliant introduction- Parmar weaves an intimate portrait of Mirrlees' life, writing and acquaintances in a beautifully written 50 pages.
3.5/5 rounded up to be nice. Would have been a 5 if it wasn't for some of the essays- her skill lay in poetry, in my opinion!
However, some of the selected essays weren't as great as what preceded them- the classical influence of Jane Harrison (and Mirrlees' own classical studies at Newnham) is apparent, but the essays could be more concise, lose some of the classical references, and generally be more readable.
One of the high points of this book was the brilliant introduction- Parmar weaves an intimate portrait of Mirrlees' life, writing and acquaintances in a beautifully written 50 pages.
3.5/5 rounded up to be nice. Would have been a 5 if it wasn't for some of the essays- her skill lay in poetry, in my opinion!
September 18, 2021
Laden with mythology, romance languages, dark academic intrigue and sapphic coding, this poem anthology/ essay collection/ introductory biography is a delightful dive into the life and work of Mirrlees.
March 2, 2023
Finely wrought, fascinating, and worthy of far more attention than Mirrlees has hitherto received.
December 28, 2020
It's hard to review poetry anthologies, because I take every poem on its own, and my opinion can vary wildly from poem to poem. This one had a lot of poems that just barely missed the mark for me--good enough that I wanted to see if I liked the next one better, but never totally grabbing me.
That said, my favorites, for various reasons, were: "In a Pagan Wood," "Winter Trees" (these first two, especially), "A Doggerel Epitaph For My Little Dog, Sally," "I'd Like to Get In Your Dreams," and "Shooting Stars." I nearly loved "A Skull" and "Amor Fati." Paris: A Poem was technically interesting, but not a style I really go for.
That said, my favorites, for various reasons, were: "In a Pagan Wood," "Winter Trees" (these first two, especially), "A Doggerel Epitaph For My Little Dog, Sally," "I'd Like to Get In Your Dreams," and "Shooting Stars." I nearly loved "A Skull" and "Amor Fati." Paris: A Poem was technically interesting, but not a style I really go for.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews