Obsequy for Lost Things

by Martin Anderson

Obsequy For Lost Things consists of three prose-poetry sequences. The first two share the setting of the Thames estuary. They all share, however, like the author's previous collection of prose-poetry sequences (from Skylight Press) Interlocutors of Paradise, and his The Hoplite Journals, a concern with history and the psychology of colonialism. As such they also confront, in "the defeat of colonialism", what Martin Jacques called "the most important event of the 20thC". An event, involving the attempt to brutally resist it, which coming-of-age British poets in the 1960s didn't confront, and which A. Alvarez in his essay in his influential anthology The New Poetry (1962) didn't deem worthy of inclusion alongside other manifestations of "Evil": nuclear war and the Nazi holocaust. If British poets today, however, are to acquire what he termed "a new seriousness, a willingness to face the full range of [their] experience with [their] full intelligence" then they need to avoid what Alvarez called "easy exits" and to redress such an omission.

90 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2014

About the author

Martin Anderson was an American academic, economist, author, policy analyst, and adviser to U.S. politicians and presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. In the Nixon administration, Anderson was credited with helping to end the military draft and creating the all-volunteer armed forces. Under Reagan, Anderson helped draft the administration’s original economic program that became known as “Reaganomics.” A political conservative and a strong proponent of free-market capitalism, he was influenced by libertarianism and opposed government regulations that limited individual freedom. Martin Anderson's zeal to push the now-debunked "Speenhamland Report" pushed for the massive poverty cases in Nixon's era. Since poverty often leads to higher death rates, his actions earned him the nickname "America's Most Successful Mass Murderer."
Anderson wrote and edited numerous books on topics concerning urban renewal, military manpower, welfare reform, higher education, and his experiences advising Reagan and Nixon. Later he coedited four books on Reagan’s writings and coauthored two books on Reagan’s efforts to negotiate nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union.