Personae: And Other Selected Poems

by Peter Abbs

is the new poem sequence by Peter Abbs. In this collection, he traces a recurrent movement from autobiography to myth from concern with place and identity to a preoccupation with persona (mask) and myth a movement from the heart to the imagination and back to the heart. Using the lives of characters from history and mythology-painters philosophers poets-he explores the creative experiences of a variety of men and women. these poems are placed in a wider context by the inclusion here of poems that demonstrate the full range of Abbs' work. This book confirms his stature as one of our leading contemporary poets.

174 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1995

Reviews

[Richard Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection includes the sequences 'Personae' and 'Icons of Time', together with selections from two earlier volumes. If it was all as good as 'Icons of Time', I'd give it five stars. The family troubles of that collection are vividly and convincingly evoked. It's a little collection I would like to go back to. Elsewhere, where he's not so good, Abbs sometimes overloads his poetry with classical and literary allusions. Personally, with fifty years of varied reading behind me, I don't mind this, but with our education system seemingly destined to produce only a fraction of the literature graduates it did in the 60s and 70s, I wonder if there will be any audience for such work to speak of in the future?